


A Selkie's Approval

by Reyna_is_epic



Category: RWBY
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Dorks, Dragon!Yang, F/F, Gay, Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M, Multi, Oops, Selkie!Weiss, Selkies, Sort of Soulmate AU, Supernatural Elements, Useless Lesbians, Vampire!Neptune, Weiss Schnee Needs a Hug, Witch!Blake, not really but there's elements of it, supernatural comminuty, yang needs a nap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2019-08-20 22:56:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16564730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reyna_is_epic/pseuds/Reyna_is_epic
Summary: She made her way to another table, taking an order, getting a request for a full bottle of scotch from some woman who looked far too young to be drinking, and made her way to and back from the kitchen twice more before she found herself looking for the blue-eyed woman once again.Only to come up empty. Save for the discarded remains of the party’s plates and a single fluffy white coat where the woman had been sitting, the table was abandoned. A busboy was already setting the dishes in a washbasin, but just as he was reaching out to pull the coat from its seat something tugged at her. Something twinged in her gut, yelling, screaming that she couldn’t let anyone else touch that coat.





	1. Dragon

When Yang took the job it wasn’t a choice she made lightly. She didn’t take it to have fun or meet new people. She wasn’t chasing a dream or exploring her surroundings, no.

 

When Yang took the job it was a choice made out of desperation, plain and simple.

 

She watched with tired, bloodshot eyes as a platter was set down in front of her, smoked salmon and a side of some expensive vegetable she couldn’t name for the life of her glaring back with a sense of mocking entitlement she’d normally kill a person for giving her. As it was she lifted it up with a practiced ease and made her way out to the dining floor, weaving her way between white-clothed tables and expensive patrons whose outfits were probably worth more than her apartment.

 

Yes, spending the majority of her twenties scraping up minimum wage by lapping at people’s tailcoats in a desperate bid to put her little sister through grad school was not her first choice, far from it, she’d expected to spend her twenties and early thirties coasting from couch to couch and occasionally making her way into more than one bedroom of whatever attractive person she’d managed to meet that night. Then her father had to fuck off in oblivion, god rest his aching soul, and left her with a little sister and hyperactive dog to take care of.

 

So, when Torchwick had offered her a job as a server for high-class people whose tips could probably pay her student loans, she’d jumped at the offer. Three years later and one too many self-entitled lectures from patrons who thought she wasn’t worth the effort of licking the dirt from their cleats, she would rather stuff her head in the sausage grinder.

 

“Jesus,” a familiar drawl stole her attention from glaring at the platter of steaming food she wasn’t allowed to eat. Looking up she was met with a glimmer of mischievous blue eyes, a familiar trouble-making grin pulling at the corners, “Who pissed in your whiskey?”

 

Yang snorted, rolling her eyes, “Not tonight, Sun.” She tugged her neck to the side, letting out a series of pops that sent her coworker cringing, and waltzed off to place the food down in front of some elderly couple. The man was already making a wide gesture with his fork and with the salmon placed in front of him, struck home with the tongs, missing Yang’s outstretched hand by a fraction of an inch. Unblinking, his wife picked up her own fork, refusing to acknowledge Yang’s existence other than a wide shooing motion.

 

Yang swallowed a sigh and started her rounds, weaving around to another table where she spotted a group of several well-dressed young men sitting themselves down. Until a wide-chested body slid into the middle of her path, nearly causing her to headbutt him dead on in the chin.

 

“Seriously,” Sun drawled, pressing his hands onto his hips in an imitation of some kind of superhero pose that Yang had seen her sister mimick one too many times. “What’s up with you? You’re acting more pissy than usual, and that’s saying something.”

 

Yang released a short breath of frustration, reminding herself briefly that strangling Sun would not cause her pay to go up.

 

“Ruby’s birthday is this weekend,” she started, concentrating very hard on maneuvering herself around Sun to grab a set of menus.

 

“And?” Sun asked, leaning against a recently vacated table and nearly placing his hand in the remains of someone’s discarded soup.

 

“And-,” Yang drew the word out, looking up from her work to glare at Sun once again. “Guess who quit so I have to pick up all of her shitty shifts.”

 

Sun hissed in sympathy, crossing his arms over his chest and chewing his lip.

 

“I’d offer to pick them up for you, but I’ve got a concert this weekend.” he shrugged his best ‘what can you do’ shrug and picked himself back up, taking the empty platter from Yang’s hands.

 

Yang ground her teeth, ready to set something on fire.

 

“It’s my sister’s twenty-first birthday and you can’t get out of some stupid concert to lend me a hand here?” she asked, incredulous, and Sun just shrugged once again.

 

“Sorry! Hey, I’ll make it up to you and take your shift Monday, that way you can hang out with her then-?”

 

Yang just sighed, collapsing back against the table herself, pressing a hand to her eyes.

 

“Ruby has class Monday,” she muttered morosely into her palm.

 

All she got in return was a final shrug before Sun disappeared back into the kitchen, leaving her to her fate.

 

Drawing in one last deep breath of self-control, Yang forced her legs to bare her weight once more.

 

 _Just two more hours,_ she reminded herself internally as she approached the table of guffawing young men.  _Two more hours of this and then I get to go home._

 

 _Neopolitan’s_ wasn’t the worst place in the world to work. All things considered, it was probably one of the  _nicer_ places Yang had worked. Sure, pay wasn’t the best, but considering she usually made more than a couple hundred in tips nightly that didn’t really matter too much. She’d worked jobs in high school that demanded more of her.

 

 _Neopolitan’s_ was also one of the top restaurants in New Orleans, attracting customers who regularly spent enough money on dinner to pay for a brand new sports car. Yang had seen all manner of important people over the course of her three years of work, from Hollywood celebrities to Bill Gates, she’d seen it all.

 

Or at least, she thought she had.

 

As she was weaving her way through the tables, order ticket clutched close to her breast, she was caught by a set of eyes: pale, arctic blue crashing over her within a sea of bustling people, dimly lit conversations and shady business talk all drowned out as a set of intelligent eyes grabbed Yang by the throat and held her there.

 

She stopped, freezing stock still in the middle of an aisle, and stared.

 

Blue eyes lead to a long pink scar, just barely passing over top one of those eyes, drawing her gaze down to a perfect curled nose and a set of pale lips, plump and full. A delicate chin and perfect, unmarked skin.

 

Yang had seen all manner of beautiful people, celebrities were a daily occurrence at Neopolitan’s after all, but she’d never seen a person like this.

 

Blonde, white hair cascaded down the woman’s shoulders, pulled away from her face by an elegant tie, but not away from her shoulders, where white and porcelain skin draped themselves over a small lithe frame that left Yang swallowing thick enough to choke down a whole meatball. Elegant lips pulled themselves upwards in a slight smirk, Yang’s attention not going unnoticed, a single white brow raising in challenge.

 

Yang shoved her pride as far down as it would go and stormed the remainder of her way into the kitchen.

 

“Woah,” a voice said, a smaller form stumbling away, just barely managing to keep an array of plates balanced on a tray. Yang winced, feeling heat concentrating in her face despite her best efforts.

 

“Sorry Ren,” she muttered, shuffling gracelessly to the side so that the other server might make his way past her. However, as his gaze met hers, she was caught in the dry concern that, when coming from Ren, was often followed by a disapproving frown that her father would approve of.

 

“Got… distracted,” she muttered, unable to come up with a better excuse because, well that’s all she was, right? Distracted by the pretty girl with the pretty eyes who could probably buy Yang’s life savings.

 

Ren’s expression did not change, but rather than press the issue he simply made a raise with his brows and exited onto the floor, leaving Yang to sink back against the wall. Today was just not her lucky day. Ren was, all things considered, harmless, but he'd worked at the same damn restaurant long enough that he could probably tell something had spooked her, and that was just the last thing that Yang needed today.

 

“Distracted isn’t a word I would use."  _Speak of the devil and he shall appear,_ Yang slowly rolled her head to the side, glaring Velvet down from where she hid behind one of the counters, casually flicking a pan back and forth as pieces of rice and shrimp made mad attempts to escape a fiery demise. Velvet Scarlatina was a small mousey little thing with long brown hair pulled up in dual buns that Coco often teased her for by calling them bunny ears, not that it seemed to have any effect on the Australian woman.

 

“Mind your own business Scarlatina,” Yang growled, slamming the order ticket down on the counter. Velvet only laughed, a bubbling sound that caused several other cooks to glance their way, for Velvet’s laughter always meant something interesting.

 

“Well, considering the great heartbreaker Xiao Long is coming into my kitchen with blood in her cheeks, I consider it my business.” Hazel eyes glittered with mirth and the pan was dumped unceremoniously onto a plate beside her.

 

“You’re not Sous Chef yet, Bun.” Coco leaned over her own pot of god-knew-what to flash a grin their direction. Coco was at least a foot taller than her fiance, leaving the poor girl with almost no breathing room whenever she stood to close, leaning over her head like some kind of overprotective mother bear. Velvet responded by flipping her the bird with the practiced ease of people who have been in each other's company for far too long do.

 

“That’s all it was, Velvet,” Yang grumbles, internally chastising herself for letting her guard down so easily. She got flirted with at work all the time, that was half the job when it came to getting tips, why was she freaking out over one pretty woman’s passing glance.

 

“I call bull,” the older woman replied, setting a plate in front of Yang and reaching behind her for another. “Last time you got this flustered was when your sister and her girlfriend showed up.” Something hot lodged itself in Yang’s chest.

 

“She never told me she was dating a fucking Olympian athlete!” Yang shrieked, perhaps ranging dangerously close to a squawk, but still within the range of human hearing. Velvet and Coco both threw back their heads and laughed, well versed in Yang’s moods enough to know she wasn’t ready to set the kitchen on fire yet. Unlike when Pyrrha has stopped by, they had lost a number of good pans that day.

 

“Considering your reaction I’m not sure I would’ve either,” Coco murmured once she’d recovered, leveling an all too pleased look with Yang’s ire.

 

“Fuck off Adel.”

 

“Watch your tone, Xiao Long,” Coco’s lip curled further upwards, looking all too much like the cat that ate the canary. “Now, what’s got you freaking out.”

 

Yang sighed, reaching up to massage her temples for the nth time this day. Two more hours, come on man.

 

“Some lady out there was making eyes at me,” she grumbled, hoping her hand would muffle the words enough that they wouldn’t be heard, wishing with all her might to sink into the floor and disappear. Coco snickered while Velvet raised her brows.

 

“You’re freaking out over a pretty set of eyes?” she asked, judgment surprisingly lax from her voice. Yang still felt the need to defend herself in spite.

 

“It was more than eyes,” she muttered, more like grumbled, morosely.

 

Coco cackled, leaning back in her spot to brace herself against the kitchen counter.

 

“Heartbreaker Xiao Long done in by a pretty set of eyes-”

 

“Need I remind you of what you said to me when Velvet started working here?” Yang snapped, not in the mood for more people poking the dragon. Red splashed across Coco’s face, leaving a smirking Velvet and chucking Takashi behind the both of them.

 

“Get your tray and go,” Coco grumbled, facing her pot once again and receiving a peck on the cheek from her fiancee.

 

Yang smiled in triumph and, without another word, lifted her tray and made her way out the doors once again. However, as soon as her feet crossed the threshold she was aware once again of a set of blue eyes scanning their way across the room. She paced, careful and deliberate, around the dining room, barely sparing anyone else a glance as she began to study the woman once more.

 

She sat at a corner table, shrouded in the shadow of her booth, sandwiched between a woman with long dark hair and a boy whose blue locks appeared to be attempting to escape his head, leaping skyward despite the copious amounts of gel she could see from at least a good seven yards away.

 

The boy and her dark-haired companion were conversing amiably, perhaps one of the more pleasant conversations that she could see around the room, but the white-haired woman between them looked utterly uninterested. Her gaze continued to sweep across the floor as if looking for something. She wasn’t quite searching, the movement was far too lazy to be desperate, but rather as if she simply wanted something worthy of her attention. Once Yang finally made it to her stop at a table where a lone businessman sat those eyes caught hers again, and Yang watched as her head tilted in curiosity. White eyebrows lifted followed by a hand curling beneath her chin, settling atop it like she wasn’t planning on removing the look any time soon.

 

Something thudded in her chest, she couldn’t voice it if she tried, but she just… knew. Those eyes were asking her a  question, one she knew the answer to, but couldn’t find a way to voice.

 

“Miss?” a voice interrupted the impromptu staring competition and Yang blinked, snapping her gaze downward to look at the man she was supposed to be serving. Startlingly clear hazel eyes met hers, ones that positively did not reflect the age she could see in the man sitting before her. Half moon glasses perched on a remarkably beaklike nose, and though he was far from youthful, he wore a pressed green suit that was far from unflattering. She swallowed, something dropping in her stomach as she met his gaze.

 

“Uh, yes?” she muttered dumbly, unable to comprehend exactly what was going on, being tossed from one intelligent stare to another. The man smiled knowingly as if they were sharing some sort of private joke.

 

“My shrimp?” he asked, lifting one brow in amusement and Yang blinked, suddenly remembering she was at work.

 

“Oh, right,” she muttered, setting down the plate sheepishly. “Sorry about that sir-”

 

“Ozpin,” the man offered, lifting his fork with a smile. “And don’t worry about it. I know young love when I spot it.”

 

Yang felt the blood rushing to her face once again and excused herself before she could make a bigger fool of herself.

 

She made her way to another table, taking an order, getting a request for a full bottle of scotch from some woman who looked far too young to be drinking, and made her way to and back from the kitchen twice more before she found herself looking for the blue-eyed woman once again.

 

Only to come up empty. Save for the discarded remains of the party’s plates and a single fluffy white coat where the woman had been sitting, the table was abandoned. A busboy was already setting the dishes in a washbasin, but just as he was reaching out to pull the coat from its seat something tugged at her. Something twinged in her gut, yelling, screaming that she couldn’t let anyone else touch that coat. It was like a force hooked itself into her stomach and pulled her over by the navel.

 

She lunged, faster than she could process, and closed her hands around the fabric.

 

No, not fabric,  _fur_ , it was far too heavy to be anything else. As her fingers tangled in the fibers a strange sense of peace washed over her, like a piece of her soul she didn’t know she was missing until now reunited itself within her chest. White fur slid over her fingertips with a familiar ease, soft and cold. Yang was struck with the cold of the strands, snow in her hands. Mesmerized, Yang brought the fur up, inspecting it with hungry eyes.

 

“Uh, Yang?” Jaune’s voice swam through her ears and Yang startled, blinking herself out of whatever trance she’d entered, pulling the fur coat down and pressing it against her chest, as if she feared someone might attempt to take it from her.

 

“Where did they go?” Her voice sounded odd to her own ears, breathless and distant. Jaune blinked, pointing with one hand while giving her the most bemused expression he could conjure. However, Yang just couldn’t find it within herself to care. The tugging sensation in her gut was pulling again, and she quickly found her feet moving without approval from her brain: tearing through the dining floor, across the waiting area, and out the door, before she could heed the cries of her confused coworkers and her frantically screaming brain.

 

“Where’s the fire?” Sun’s jovial voice called at her back just before the biting January wind met her face.

 

 _What the living hell are you doing Yang?!_ Her brain screeched, but her body didn’t listen, gliding along a path she somehow knew by heart, treading down the busy streets of downtown New Orleans, skidding over loose gravel and around brightly lit walkways as if on winged feet.

 

The fur clutched in her palms seemed to get colder as she ran, thudding feet against worn cobblestone centuries older than she would ever be. She banked right around some pub she didn’t have the presence of mind to read the name of and darted up a hill far too steep for her liking. The familiar burn of lungs attempting to gasp in late night air didn’t come to her. The ache of feet pounding the pavement in shoes far too thin for the abuse they were getting didn’t rear its ugly head. Her face didn’t feel the chill of the night air on its skin.

 

The only things Yang could feel was the tugging in her gut and the cold in her hands.

 

Her heart thudded in her chest, like the old drum her father used to play whenever the sun began to set on the summer solstice, his scratchy voice raised in praise to spirits she didn’t know the names of.

 

Yang remembered an old hymn he’d sing, eyes set on the surrounding ocean and crooked grin tugging up his cheeks, hands pumping in a rhythm she’d known by heart before she could walk.

 

_‘Oh darkened isle of darkened rock,_

 

_Where did you leave me?_

 

_The sun was gone and stars dark,_

 

_When you cast me out to sea._

 

_Yet deep still in those roiling tongues,_

 

_You handed me your heart,_

 

_But in the end, it was not enough,_

 

_And you left me-’_

 

And then the tugging stopped.

 

Yang skidded to a halt, piercing blue eyes filling her vision and refusing to release her even as she made it to them, nearly allowing her to trample the poor woman. As it was, she slammed into her with enough speed to send them both crashing to the ground. She heard a strangled yelp followed by a series of chuckles that she could vaguely tell were coming from somewhere above her.

 

Hands pressed against Yang’s shoulders just as her own wrapped around the warm waist of the poor woman she’d flattened. She scrambled, frantic, and managed to find the cement, pressing herself upwards and away from the woman enough that she could see her eyes, and froze.

 

“Um...” A voice drawled and Yang was struck with the beautiful blue-eyes beneath her, staring up with utter confusion and disbelief in equal parts. A strangled feeling crept into her throat and Yang sprang backward, trying to recollect her scattered thoughts she was sure were on the ground somewhere beneath her.

 

“I-I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry,” Yang sputtered, reaching down with desperate hands, only then remembering the reason she’d run all the way out here in the first place, clutching the coat in her outstretched palm. Embarrassment clawed up her throat only for her to slam it back down with a violent cough and ensuing gulp. She conjured any shred of poise she had left. “I-Uh-you uh-you dropped this.”

 

Blue eyes widened, staring at the small white thing in Yang’s hands as if she’d just offered her a diamond ring. Next to them, the chuckling cut off abruptly and Yang glanced up just in time to meet wide amber eyes, the dark-haired woman from  _Neopolitan’s_.

 

No one moved, no one spoke, the three just stared.

 

Yang could feel the blood thundering in her veins, heart thudding in her chest like a rapid stampede. The blue-eyed woman’s gaze had yet to lift from the coat in Yang’s hands, looking all too much as if she’d been offered a national treasure and not her own coat. Her black-haired companion was staring at Yang like she was offering her a lit bomb.

 

“Um,” Yang found herself gulping, desperate for some sort of reaction. “I uh, sorry I just, look I’ll uh, pay for your dress if you got something on it. I’m sorry I didn’t see you and I was just-I didn’t know-I uh-”

 

A throat cleared and three sets of eyes looked up to meet the speaker. The blue haired boy from earlier stood, hands crossed over his chest and smirk plastered across his lips. Suddenly, Yang was reminded of another boy with a similar troublemaking grin.

 

“Weiss,” he hissed, eyes bouncing between Yang and the woman on the ground with risen brows, some meaning that Yang didn’t understand gleaming in them.

 

The blue-eyed woman sprung upwards suddenly, taking the coat from her hands in one quick movement that was almost a swipe. As soon as the fur left Yang’s hands exhaustion rained down on her as if the past-- god-knew-how-long -- minutes of running had just caught up with her. She doubled over, almost sinking to the pavement herself as she gasped for air. An arm clenched her tie, hoisting her back upwards to meet narrowed blue eyes.

 

“Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?” she asked, brows furrowed. Yang blinks, confused, struggling to fill her lungs with oxygen.

 

“Returned-” she wheezed, “your coat?”

 

“Weiss.” The dark-haired girl to her side rose her brows, crossing her own arms over her chest. A strange expression crossed ‘Weiss’s face, and then she let out a heavy sigh, releasing her grip on the front of Yang’s shirt and allowing her to stand on her own once again, the air slowly came back into her lungs.

 

“What,” Yang sputtered once she’d regained the ability to breathe, “the hell was that?” Weiss and her two companions made eye contact, mainly the other two glaring the shortest girl down like she was about to start a fight they both knew she’d lose.

 

“It’s… a long story,” Weiss’s shoulders drooped in something akin to defeat, but almost as soon as they did they bounced back up, a fire ignited her eyes and something else in her expression. Appraising Yang like a particularly interesting sculpture, one that she didn’t quite know the meaning of, Weiss paced around her, eyes flicking up and down her frame.

 

“Well, I got that,” Yang bit back, reaching up to pull some of the hair out of her face. “Magic coat that makes me tear out of my-” she suddenly cut herself off, eyes widening. “Fuck, my shift!” she shouted, turning on her heel and sprinting back the way she came.

 

“Wait!” Weiss’s voice echoed behind her, but the blonde was already long gone, leaving three young adults standing in dumb astonishment.

 

“Well,” Blake muttered, fixing Weiss and Neptune both with a look. “I had fun.”

 

Both of her companions glared at her.


	2. Snowflake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Truthfully, the blonde didn’t seem too terrible. She had run almost a mile in her work shoes from the restaurant just to return the coat, and if it weren’t binding she might’ve found the gesture endearing. The woman had looked just her type as well, walking around the restaurant floor with an air of ease that seemed to cause the woman’s customers to nearly melt at her presence and an undeniably attractive visage. Weiss had been interested even before the damn coat had become a factor.
> 
> Then she showed up with those damn lavender eyes, glistening in the street lights just the right way, hair ruffled from wind and cheeks glowing from the winter chill. A nervous smile far too endearing for her liking and outstretched hands. A smooth voice despite the obvious embarrassment, deep and st-
> 
> “Goddamnit,” she growled

“What the hell was I supposed to do?!”

 

Blake’s apartment door slammed into the wall opposite, shaking the walls and causing plaster to rain down from the ceiling. Weiss stomped, feet leaving behind patches of frost, through the hallway, making it all the way into Blake’s living room before spinning on a single graceful heel and flopping backward into the couch.

 

There was a loud scrambling noise as Gambol Shroud made a mad dash to escape the enraged Selkie, leaping to the floor and running to hide behind Blake, mewing in protest the whole way.

 

“Uh, here’s a thought, not threaten her?” the witch offered, throwing up her hands in exasperation. Neptune chuckled from his spot in the hallway, leaning against the doorframe with all the grace of a corpse. 

 

“Well, remember when I met Sun?” He offered, raising perfectly manicured brows in challenge. 

 

Weiss released a breath that sounded dangerously close to a scream. With a violent motion, her hands came up and made a loud smacking noise against her face, muffling the scream but not stopping it completely.

 

“To be fair, Vampiric Mates and Selkie coat rites are a little different.” Blake’s voice drawled, sounding as if she were making her way around the back of the couch. Weiss could hear the sound of fabric sliding over her shoulders.

 

“You going to invite me in or leave me here all night?” Weiss lowered her hands just in time to see Neptune giving Blake his best ‘I’m innocent’ smile, though it lacked in nearly any way that could make it effective with a pair of sharp fangs protruding from it.

 

Blake’s brows rose in disbelief, remaining stationary beside the coat rack and scarcely daring to breathe until the fangs retracted back into their rightful places. Neptune dropped his head in defeat.

 

“Sorry.”

 

“You better be,” was all Blake said, returning to her previous action, hanging the coat and then easily skating back around the couch just in time to flop down beside Weiss before she could conjure up the presence of mind to sprawl out.

 

Neptune sighed, closing the door behind himself and reaching up to pull off his own coat and Weiss rolled her eyes at the exchange, utterly unimpressed by Neptune’s ability to act like a dick at this point, it was far too commonplace.

 

“It’s not exactly like I was expecting to get married tonight, Blake,” she grumbled, returning to the previous mode of conversation and, arguably, the more important one. Blake snorted, reaching upwards and tugging the bow from her head. Her ears sprang forwards, black tips straining to attempt to get all of the soreness from the cramped muscles.

 

“You’re not  _ married _ Weiss,” she chuckled and reached up to massage the bases. “Not in the human definition anyway.”

 

“Well human culture is weird enough without the complications of involving supernaturals in it.” Neptune dropped to the floor, plucking his goggles from his forehead and dispensing them on the coffee table.

 

“Regardless of the ‘human definition’ or custom or whatever,” Weiss growled, pulling herself from the back of the couch to fix a glare at Blake that wouldn’t be obstructed by the countless throw pillows the witch kept around for some unfathomable reason. “According to tradition we’re now married, or in the very least engaged.”

 

“Well, you’re going to have to be the one to confront her about that.” Neptune looked far too interested in his phone to actually be thinking out his words and that was always a bad thing when he was involved. “When I met Sun I butchered it so badly I made the poor guy think I was some sort of serial killer.”

 

“You’re a vampire Neptune,” Blake drawled, “You’re a serial killer whether you admit it or not.”

 

“Shut up Blake.”

 

“How the hell do you tell someone, ‘hey, I know that we just met and that I kinda almost strangled you, but guess what, according to some ancient laws you don’t abide by and instincts I have no control over we’re married now!’?!” Weiss snapped.

 

Selkie coats were, in all manners of folklore, a complicated matter. In some myths, stealing the coat of a Selkie would grant one power over them and while that was true, to an extent, it did not mean the forced marriage humans sung of in their hymns. No, on the contrary, it rather reduced the Selkie to someone who could not act against the coat’s holder.

 

She remembered lavender eyes wreathed in a halo of golden locks, a gentle face that spoke of a caring soul, and a frame that spoke of a discipline and power that she could feel thrumming through her own veins. The coat clutched in the woman’s outstretched hands had almost been an afterthought, but the pull of magic far older than her had nearly caused her to kneel before the woman rather than take it back.

 

“Weiss you need to stop thinking about the long haul,” Neptune sighed tiredly, pulling his gaze up from his lap to fix her with a look. “She’s human. Humans have an exceptionally long courting period for some reason, so you don’t just go in guns blazing with, hey, let’s get married!”

 

“Right,” Blake agreed, nodding to herself. “You work up to it, get to know her, spend a couple months flirting helplessly before you bring it up.”

 

“Yeah, and _ where _ in this process do I mention I’m a Selkie?” With risen brows and a bored tone, Weiss could usually communicate her displeasure with a scenario in record time.  Unfortunately, her friends seemed to be ignoring her this evening.

 

“Uh, just short of never,” Neptune said.

 

“I’m not taking _ your  _ advice, fangface.” Weiss snapped, slinking to her feet and disappearing into the kitchen.

 

“Hey!”

 

“Weiss-” Blake called tiredly, but Weiss didn’t want to hear it right now.

 

Selkie coats were, as she knew from her poor mother’s fate, binding. They contained some sort of property, one she wasn’t entirely sure of, that caused whoever returned the coat to the selkie to form a certain bond, similar to a Were’s impressions, finding a mate that they would remain loyal to and recognize in any manner of disguise.

 

Unfortunately, while useful for bearing children, the adaptation also rarely ended happily. Weiss could count on one hand the number of happy Selkies she’d met throughout her life, and she’d sworn that she would never let someone steal her coat, much less return it to her.

 

One stupid slip up at a dinner she was supposed to be supporting a friend’s romantic endeavors in and she was now bound to some blonde chick.

 

“At least she’s my age,” she grumbled sarcastically to her reflection.

 

Truthfully, the blonde didn’t seem too terrible. She had run almost a mile in her work shoes from the restaurant just to return the coat, and if it weren’t binding she might’ve found the gesture endearing. The woman had looked just her type as well, walking around the restaurant floor with an air of ease that seemed to cause the woman’s customers  to nearly melt at her presence and an undeniably attractive visage. Weiss had been interested even before the damn coat had become a factor.

 

Then she showed up with those damn lavender eyes, glistening in the street lights just the right way, hair ruffled from wind and cheeks glowing from the winter chill. A nervous smile far too endearing for her liking and outstretched hands. A smooth voice despite the obvious embarrassment, deep and st-

 

“Goddamnit,” she growled, recognizing the thoughts of a bond slowly seeping into her brain. Her hands flew up to clutch at the sides of her head, hoping to somehow squeeze her brain free. “It’s barely been an hour!”

 

“Weiss.” Blake’s voice was much closer than she last heard it and she whipped around to meet her oldest friend head-on. In the dimmed light of the kitchen, her eyes positively glowed, gleaming in that mysterious way that had originally drawn her interest in the young woman.

 

“I know, I know,” Weiss sighed, closing her eyes in reverence, “I’m freaking out over a natural thing.”

 

Blake sighed, turning around and flicking on the kitchen light. Weiss winced at the change, but simply watched as Blake stepped around her, making her way to the fridge and kicking it open, tugging out a bottle of beer and then tossing one to Weiss before she could voice a request. Drink in hand, Blake made her way to slide onto the counter,  patting the area beside herself before popping the top of her bottle with a practiced ease.

 

“C’mon, come tell older sister Blake all of your problems.”

 

Weiss snorted, making her way beside her best friend, not sparing the other girl a friendly bump to the shoulder, nearly sending her sliding off the counter with the force of it.

 

“I already have one older sister, I don’t need another,” Weiss snarked only to receive a glare in turn, the ears atop Blake’s head slid downwards to pin against the woman’s head. Weiss sighed in defeat, taking a long drink from her bottle. “Fine, I’ll quit stalling.”

 

“Well considering you’ve been moaning about it since you got your coat back I’d say you’re long overdue,” Blake drawled. She pulled her legs up in one swift motion, tucking them beneath herself. “So, what’s your problem with this? Usually you’re super proud about the whole, ‘last of the purebred Selkie line, blah blah blah’.”

 

Weiss was certain that if looks could kill Blake would’ve been dead a long time ago.

 

“First off, it’s ‘last of a purely human-selkie line’, most selkie lines have interbred with other supernaturals at this point and it’s literally impossible for a selkie to breed with others of its kind considering we’re all female,” Blake rolled her eyes, Weiss continued, “Second off-”

 

Weiss cut herself off with a massive sigh, leaning back against the wall and closing her eyes momentarily. A flash of her father and mother, arguing louder than anything else in her life- silence was all-consuming all the time. Silent rooms, silent toys, silent halls- shouting loud enough to shake pictures off the wall. Porcelain figures fell to their dooms against the tile floors. She wasn’t sure which she hated more, the silence or the shouting.

 

“You know my mother wasn’t exactly happy in her marriage.” Weiss’s voice was getting considerably smaller and she hated it but she couldn’t stop it for fear of hearing it break. “We can’t exactly guarantee I won’t be stuck in the same goddamn situation.”

 

A hand settled on Weiss’s shoulder, forcing her to tear her eyes from the place they’d settled against the wall. Blake’s ears had pinned themselves back once again, brows pressed together and mouth drawn into a thin line.

 

“Weiss I’d sooner become a necromancer than let anything like that happen to you,” she growled, voice ranging dangerously close to a hiss. Weiss often forgot that Witches, especially those of the belladonna line, were older than the gods themselves, capable of feats that would send most other creatures running. She could feel that power now, sending the hairs along the back of her neck and her spine straight upwards. 

 

“You can’t interfere,” Weiss hissed in spite of it, “you know as well as I do that the laws prohibit anyone from interfering with a mate-bond. Selkie coat rites included.”

 

“Don’t care,” Blake snarled back, “That woman lays a finger on you the same way that man did and I’ll fucking break her.”

 

Something spiked in Weiss’s stomach, angry and hot like a flaming spear. A surge of protective energy as a purple gaze returned to her vision. She sucked in a breath, closing her eyes and pressing her palms against the counter, restraining the sudden impractical urge to attack her oldest friend.  _ She’s just being overprotective, _ she growled to herself,  _ calm down. It’s just the matebond acting up. _

 

“Weiss?” Blake asked.

 

_ THREAT! _ An animalistic part of her screeched, and she slammed it down with as much energy as she could muster, springing to her feet.

 

“I’m going for a swim, I need to clear my head.” She announced, darting towards the door.

 

“Weiss, wait,” Blake’s hand clenched around her wrist, tugging her back in, pulling her around to face her. Amber eyes searched her face before the ears slowly rose back up. “Your matebond. It’s acting up already?”

 

Weiss restrained the idea of simply collapsing into a puddle of self-pity on the spot. She had plenty of time to do that later when her friend couldn’t see her.

 

“Evidently,” Weiss grumbled, clenching and unclenching her hands at her sides.

 

Blake’s brows rose.

 

“It shouldn’t be acting like this, not at least until after you’ve had some actual interaction with her-”

 

“Well, apparently magic soul bonds don’t make sense Blake, who would’ve guessed?!” Weiss close to shouted. She was tired. Tired and cranky and yearning for the sea that roiled in her veins whenever she started to get stressed out. A matebond that she didn’t want nor could get rid of qualified.

 

Blake’s ears twitched, unimpressed. “Wess, magic has its methods. Even things like this have their ways, if you’re this close to freaking out over a statement from someone who should qualify to you as kin, then there’s something different about this bond-”

 

“Do I look like I care Blake?!” Weiss snapped. It was there again, that strange hot thing, though Weiss was almost certain it wasn’t instinctual protectiveness. It felt far too tangible for that like some small fiery thing was pressing itself against the back of her throat, trying desperately to escape through her mouth.

 

A hand landed on Weiss’s shoulder and before anyone could say ‘boo’ a puff of smoke escaped the ice queen’s mouth.

 

Smoke.

 

From a Selkie’s mouth.

 

_ The fuck?! _

 

“Weiss,” a voice too sweet to be human and far too soft to be a threat washed over her, “You need to calm down.”

 

Against her will and judgment, Weiss sunk back into the speaker’s hold, going limp and nearly boneless as Neptune swept her up in his arms, spinning on his heel and carrying her back into the living room, leaving Blake to follow with a concerned expression.

 

“Wh-What have I said about the voice?” Weiss struggled from the sudden fog in her brain, knowing logically that it was probably for the best that Neptune had stepped in, but not wanting to admit it.

 

“You’re admitting heat,” Neptune ignored her, “and a lot of it. If I didn’t step in there was a good chance that you’d burst into flames.”

 

“How is that even possible,” Blake but in, ears flicking with nervous energy. They always betrayed the witch’s emotions, and Weiss usually would’ve teased her about it, but at the given moment all she really wanted to do was either curl into a ball and sleep or go out and swim. “Weiss is a selkie, and on top of that, an Ice elemental. Where’s the fire  coming from?”

 

“If I had to guess,” Neptune muttered and set Weiss down on the couch. She sunk back against the cushions with little protest and fought the weight of her own eyelids. “I’d say that little miss’s bondmate isn’t exactly human.”

 

“A fire elemental then?” Blake asked, curiosity causing the flicking tips of her ears to go still, leaning forwards with obvious interest.

 

“Perhaps,” Neptune offered, “however, if that were the case I think the fire would’ve shown up earlier. This only started once you got her riled up about her mate.”

 

“So what else?” Weiss asked from her slowly ebbing stupor, but considerably more docile, no longer feeling as if her teeth and nails were attempting to escape her body. “A phoenix?”

 

“Phoenix are incredibly rare, not to mention a lot more obvious than our blondie. If she were a phoenix we would’ve noticed the moment she bowled you over.” Blake shook her head. Neptune hummed in thought.

 

“She could be a dragon.” He suggested.

 

Both Blake and Weiss shot him looks as if he were insane.

 

“Dragons have been extinct for more than a thousand years,” Weiss cried.

 

Blake scowled. “On top of that, aren’t dragons incredibly possessive. If that woman was a dragon she wouldn’t have given the coat back, and we’d be in an entirely different pickle right now.”

 

“On the contrary,” Neptune smiled, an idea forming in his eyes and almost tangible in the air around him. “Dragons have mates,  _ Intendeds _ I believe they’re called, would explain the woman’s urgency to return the coat and the stunned expression when she and Weiss first touched. Not to mention you almost breathed fire back there, that's a skill most fire mages take years to perfect.”

 

“So,” Blake said skeptically, “You’re supposing that this woman knew what she was getting when she returned Weiss's coat?”

 

Neptune snorted. “No, she looked far too surprised when Weiss got in her face for that. I suppose that she probably didn’t figure Weiss was a selkie.”

 

“So we’re saying,” Weiss rose to her feet, finally shrugging off the lingering effects of Neptune’s stupid charmspeak. She hated it when he did that, but she couldn’t exactly argue it wasn’t warranted in this case. “That blondie is a dragon who knew and understood that we were bonded in some way before she raced to give me back my coat and is probably waiting for me to make a move next?” 

 

Neptune and Blake exchanged glances.

 

“Yup.”

 

“Pretty much.”

 

Weiss sighed, restraining the urge to scream.

 

“So I’ve been freaking out over a possibly terrible bonding that’s probably going to be fine because she’s also magically compromised on the emotional front.”

 

Blake and Neptune’s expressions are ranging dangerously close to laughter.

 

“Uhm…” Neptune coughs, pressing his lips together tightly to try and rid himself of the laugh.

 

Blake just shakes her head to negate it and then offers a shrug.

 

Weiss sucks in a deep breath.

 

“I’m going for a swim.”

 

~

 

Human myths recount tales of people who long for the sea, in which the salty air and raging waves run within the blood of creatures whose constant longing is anything but natural. These myths detail desperate bids for ocean faring vessels, fur coats clutched tightly in desperate hands as a woman flees for her freedom, or a man clings to keep his wife with him.

 

Weiss learned a long time ago that these myths were simply exaggerations of the true nature of her species coats, but parts of them still held true. Every story has its inspiration, no matter how fantastical. 

 

And so, on nights like these when the winds raged violently and Weiss could feel her patience wearing thinner than a sheet of paper, the longing to feel the familiar ocean water sliding through her fur would come back to her. It grabbed her by the throat and dragged her into the sea before she could possibly voice a protest. No matter how unsuited New Orlean’s waters were to a seal.

 

When she was young and had the benefit of a father who could afford to keep his eccentric children happy, she’d have just jumped into a pool or booked the next flight somewhere more suited to her taste. A particularly good stretch of Alaskan coast came to mind whenever she thought about her childhood; however, once she’d reached the age of fourteen and begun to unravel her father’s treatment of other supernatural beings, as well as her sister’s continued insistence that she needed to leave, she had been void of that luxury and learned to take the swim wherever she could get it, no matter if the waters were far too warm or filled with debris.

 

Besides, if she ever needed a swim it was tonight.  _ A dragon _ , the thought swirled around her head as she banked beneath the surface of the water, watching as trout and catfish swirled in the depths of the harbor she’d chosen for her excursion. When Weiss had been young, very young, young enough that her mother hadn’t yet digressed into the drunken state she hadn’t left in twenty-something years, her mother had told her that the Schnee line of selkies was an extremely proud one. Selkies, like many other supernaturals, had sought out others in order to create a community protected from human eyes. In the process, they had interbred, creating countless new young supernaturals who possessed qualities of so many other creatures they didn’t have clear names anymore. 

 

Schnees, on the other hand, were different. A long, long line of selkies who were just that, selkies. Human, and selkie, all the way back to the ancient ones. Whenever a human and a selkie had a child, if the child were a girl they’d automatically inherit their mother’s trait. If the child were a boy, they’d remain human, perhaps with a bit of a proclivity for the sea, but otherwise unaffected.

 

Her mother had told her that selkies, while a powerful and distinct species, were dwindling. With increased children who did not have a clear background and so many conflicting traits they could hardly venture out into the human world, she feared that her sister and herself would be the last of their bloodline. Weiss had sworn, sworn up and down she’d do whatever it took to ensure her species survival.

 

Twenty years later, a realization of being gay and mother spiraling into alcoholism later, she found herself bound to a dragon, a species that supposedly went extinct over a thousand years ago.

 

If her mother could see her now.

 

Weiss snorted, expelling a set of bubbles in her wake and she inwardly sighed. It wasn’t exactly her choice, she reminded herself. If Neptune was to be believed then this woman was also bound to her, probably experiencing a very similar identity crisis and brooding in her own way. Although, thinking back about the blonde’s massive grin, she could hardly believe the woman even knew how.

 

**_It’d also be great to know her name_ ** , a deep-seated part of ber brain offered, and she would’ve glared it back down if she could’ve. 

 

_ It wasn’t as if I got a chance to ask her,  _ she growled.

 

**_You could’ve done that instead of lifting her by the tie and scaring the daylights out of her,_ ** it snarked.

 

Weiss’s eye twitched.

 

_ Thank you, oh wonderful conscience, for pointing out the faults in my actions I’ve already agonized over for the past four hours. _

 

**_You’re oh so welcome._ **

 

Another set of bubbles escaped Weiss’s snout, rising in the water up to the streetlight splashed surface. Weiss sighed, releasing the last of her breath and beginning to propel herself back towards the surface. Seal form was, according to her mother and all texts she could find on the matter, her natural form, however, it was hardly the one she preferred.

 

She understood, technically, that Selkies were creatures of the sea and forms made to walk on land were just that, a temporary form to grant a wish that the sea could not. That did not mean she had to like it. As far back as she could remember her sister was the one who pursued the idea of her selkie bloodline. She’d spent nearly every moment their father did not require of her in the ocean, swimming and doing god knew what. Weiss, on the other hand, had found the sea only truly called her name when she couldn’t stand the land any longer. Tests, concerts, drama, her parent’s continued mess of a family, all of those saw her seeking the comfort of the waves.

 

Being bored, however? Simply not having anything else to do? The sea could not have been further from her mind.

 

Winter had told her it was probably simply because Weiss wasn’t born, not in the same way her sister had been at least. Delivered in the privacy of a shallow cove and their mother’s first indication that she needed to return to their father, even if she did not wish it. Weiss had been delivered the human way, upon a hospital bed, cut from her mother’s womb like some sort of tumor that needed to be removed.

 

Winter was a Selkie, plain and simple.

 

Weiss, was a human, a human with a pretty coat and a weird coping strategy, but a human no less.

 

As Weiss broke the surface she began to search for a place to shed her coat and pull herself back up onto the pier. The October chill was not nearly as severe as she was used to, but would still come as to a shock on her human form. She needed somewhere that she could get back to where she’d stashed her clothes fast.

 

“It can’t be a coincident!” a voice hissed and Weiss ducked, sinking down just with her head poking from the water. Of course there were some humans here, at the harbor in New Orleans in the middle of October, why not.

 

“Look, Ruby,” a second voice said, calmer than the first, but carrying a strange accent that Weiss associated as European, though she couldn’t distinct from where exactly. “I’m not saying it is, but I don’t really understand what you’re talking about.”

 

Just over the rim of the pier, Weiss can see two women lounging against the rail. The first is short, with dark hair that hangs around her face and a large red hoodie that seems to nearly swallow her whole. Next to her, a tall redhead is running a hand back through her hair, tapping a finger against the rail as if trying to distract herself. “Your sister has a strange encounter with some woman at work, one she finds attractive, the woman leaves behind her coat, she picks it up, and then is magically forced to return it?”

 

“Pyrrha!” the smaller woman wines, throwing her head back in reverence. “That’s not the point!”

 

“Then enlighten me!” ‘Pyrrha’ says, hands thrown up in exasperation. Her smaller companion, ‘Ruby’, Weiss remembers, sighs.

 

“Yang said that before she grabbed the coat she had this distinct feeling that the woman was important, that she felt like she was asking her something and she had the answer but couldn’t voice it,” she began pacing, hands waving dramatically through the air. “It makes sense. It’s far too similar to what happened when I met you for it to be a coincidence!”

 

“Well, you did tackle me,” Pyrrha drawled, a smirk forming on her face. Ruby whirled on her, the hood obscured her face, but Weiss was sure she must’ve been blushing.

 

“That was an accident!” she whines.

 

Pyrrha chuckles, pressing a hand to her face in a remarkably old-fashioned gesture. Ruby simply pouts, crossing her arms over her chance.

 

_ Magically forced to return a coat, huh? _ Weiss’s brain hissed, and she internally screamed. What were the chances that the person they spoke of was her…  _ Intended? _ The word felt strange if she thought of it for too long.

 

Cautiously, she swam a little closer.

 

“Look, Ruby,” Pyrrha stated, catching her companion’s hand and tugging her closer to her side. “Whatever was going on with your sister I’m sure she can handle it. It’s normal for people to freak out at the start of a relationship, or when they see someone when they find attractive.”

 

“And the finding a coat that forces her to run out of her job, despite the fact she’s been complaining about how much she needs it for the past two weeks, and sprint two miles within two minutes is normal too?” Ruby drawled, and the taller girl winced.

 

“I will admit that is less normal,” she conceded. Ruby sighed, sinking back against the pier’s railing.

 

“I just don’t know what to do Pyrrha, it’s weird and it’s not like we can ask our parents if they went through a similar thing, but if it happened to Yang and it happened to me it can’t be a coincidence, right?”

 

“I don’t think your little burst of speed was quite that impressive, rosepetal.”

 

“I outran a taxi, Pyrrha.” Ruby deadpanned.

 

“Fair point.”

 

Weiss furrowed her brow, what on earth were they talking about?

 

“Look, Ruby,” Pyrrha started, “the world is full of weird things that don’t make sense. Sometimes, it's just better not to go looking for answers you’ll only find out later you don’t want to know.”

 

“Pyrrha,” Ruby says and Weiss watches the little red figure stand on her toe to kiss her companion’s cheek. “I’m not going to run off on some quest for knowlege, okay I just… I wish I knew more about our family.”

 

Something cracked and if she were in human form Weiss would’ve cursed, as it was she released a quiet bark of panic, quickly met with two startled stares from a set of humans standing above her.

 

“Is that…?” Pyrrha started, blinking rapidly. Ruby, screamed.

 

“OH MY GOD, IT’S A SEAL!!!”

 

Weiss didn’t have time to process or repair her eardrums before an incredibly excited set of silver eyes were in front of her own, sending her tumbling back into the surf.

 

“Ruby!” Pyrrha yelped, vaulting over the railing in one clean move and rushing to grab her girlfriend around the middle and prevent her from tumbling into the surf after the creature.

 

“Wait! No, come back!” Ruby yelled, reaching after the seal’s retreating flippers. “I just want to be friends!”

 

Cautiously, Weiss poked her head back up above the surface, staring at the two. The smaller girl looked a lot younger than she had first assumed, big silver eyes giving the woman the appearance of a child, and her wide, almost comical, grin was bright enough to outshine the moon glistening above.

 

The smile only grew once she spotted her watching her from within the surf once again.

 

“Pyrrha, look!” she pointed wildly, leaving her girlfriend to struggle to pull her away from the edge.

 

“I see,” she grunted, lifting her up into her arms, perhaps for fun, perhaps to prevent her from attempting to go swimming in the Louisiana waters. Her brows furrowed, staring at Weiss with a look of recognition in her gaze, “I don’t think that seals are supposed to be in Louisiana though,” she drawled, sounding almost as if she were issuing a warning.

 

Ruby, didn’t seem to notice her tone, instead, her eyes just widened.

 

“Oh no, what if it's lost?” she asked, concern rising in her voice. Pyrrha blinked, turning her gaze from Weiss back to the girl in her arms.

 

“I’m sure she’s fine, ruby. Probably just passing through.”

 

“Maybe we should help it?” the smaller girl suggested, swinging her legs in a silent request to be put down. Pyrrha pressed her lips together.

 

“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea-”

 

Against all of her instincts of preservation, all logical sense that said, _ ‘disappear, go somewhere safer to turn back!’ _ Weiss instead pulled herself up onto the ledge the two women were standing on. For some strange reason, she just knew that the silver eyed girl was her Intended’s kin. Maybe there was something similar in the way their faces expressed concern, maybe it was a bit of that dragon rushing through the bond, but she just knew that she wouldn’t hurt her.

 

The redhead sprang backward, nearly dropping her girlfriend as she squealed, scrambling for purchase on the ground, landing with a  _ thump _ and almost immediately dropping to her knees beside Weiss.

 

“Woah,” she whispered, silver eyes glittering with excitement. She rose a hand, before apparently thinking better than to pet a wild animal as soon as it came within touching distance.

 

“Ruby!” Pyrrha hissed, “Get back here!”

 

Weiss stared up at the girl.  _ A dragon, huh? _


	3. Dragon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I tried, I really tried, BUT I CAN'T FREAKING WRITE IN PAST TENSE!!!
> 
> That being said, expect present tense from now on, not for any other reason other than I can't write any other way apparently.
> 
> M out.

If Yang’s eye doesn’t stop twitching she thinks it might eject from her skull, but in all fairness, Sun said he had a concert to go to. So here she was, Saturday afternoon, missing her sister’s birthday because he wouldn’t cover her shift. And there he was, sitting in a booth in her rotation, looking over a menu like he didn’t know it like the back of his hand.

 

She’s going to kill him.

 

“Sun Wukong.” She deadpans, glaring down over her ticket and hoping to god that she can somehow set him on fire with her eyes. Sun’s head whips up and he fixes Yang with a wide, unconcerned grin.

 

“Oh, hey Yang!” He leans back in his seat resting his arms on the back of the booth, his comfortable grin refuses to leave. Yang’s eye continues to twitch.

 

“What happened to your concert?” She tries to diminish the fire raging within her chest, but it’s already a lost cause; anger, injustice, and fatigue all convene to try and convince her to wrap her fingers around her co-worker’s neck.

 

“Oh, it got rained out,” Sun makes a shooing motion with his hand. “I was gonna just call it a night, but my boyfriend offered to take me out to dinner instead so I figured, why not?”

 

Yang is so startled by that turn of phrase thrown so casually from Sun’s mouth she completely forgets to be angry.

 

“Your boyfriend?!” she squeaks, and if she was a tad more observant, would’ve noticed the puff of smoke that escapes her nose. Sun laughs, his eyes squint shut in the motion and his teeth bear for all the world to see.

 

“Did I forget to mention that?” Sun’s mirth leaks into his words, causing them to stutter and shake uncontrollably with his laughter. Yang just stands there, stunned.

 

“Since when were you gay?!” She sputters, only to reflect on her word choice and wince immediately afterward. Sun doesn’t look deterred though, he just continues to laugh in her face.

 

“Since forever!” he practically shouts, wiping furiously at his eyes as his laughter begins to produce tears. Yang glowers further down at him, winding up to whack him over the head with her ticket book.

 

“Then how come you never mentioned it, dumbass!” 

 

Sun raises his hands in order to deflect the blow, but his laughter continues to ring out over the quiet conversations of the tables surrounding. Heads turn up to glance their way, only to return to their meals when they see a blonde server whacking a patron over the head with a menu and literally anything else within grabbing distance.

 

Yang wishes this was the first time something like this had happened on her shift. Last week it had been Coco, and honestly, Yang can live without getting threatened bodily harm from that woman again.

 

“Okay! Okay! Uncle!” Sun cries, still attempting to shield himself from Yang’s wrath. Only once he’s properly curled into a ball within his side of the booth does Yang stop the onslaught, tucking her order ticket into her apron and smirking wryly down at her coworker.

 

“Teach you not to do that again,” Yang is certain her smirk could kill a man when executed properly. She’s sent more than a few swooning with it before.

 

Sun glares at her from beneath his arms. He sits up slowly, attempting to fix his utterly hopeless hair, but it bounces right back into place. “I didn’t do anything.”

 

Yang rolls her eyes, “Tell me what you want to drink, monkey boy.”

 

Sun’s eyes narrow into slits at the moniker, but Yang can never forget her first day of work: walking into the kitchen the first time to see some blonde idiot hanging upside down from the rafters with his apron in his face. Needless to say, he had earned the title.

 

“You decide, you know what we have better than I do.” He says after he's squinted at the drink selection for a solid twenty seconds. 

 

“You serve alcohol too, Sun.” She deadpans.

 

“Doesn’t mean I know what any of it is,” he counters, eyebrows rising as that troublemaker grin slides over his face once again. “And neither do most of the people who order it.”

 

Yang lets out a long, drawn-out sigh. “And I’m the one always about to get fired.”

 

Sun scoffs, “You’re also the one who ran out of work three days ago.”

 

Yang’s expression flips to sour so fast that Sun could’ve sworn he didn’t even see the muscles in her face move.

 

“Vodka it is.” With that, she spins on her heel and starts making her way back towards the kitchen.

 

“Wait, Yang no!” Sun calls at her retreating back, but it’s too late, the kitchen doors swing closed behind her.

 

To say that Yang had a temper wasn’t inaccurate, more like, an understatement.

 

When she was younger her father liked to tell the story of when she got her first haircut, claiming she somehow managed to set the hairstylist on fire. Yang would just laugh, jab her father in the ribs, and tell him to ‘stick to telling stories, old man.’

 

As she’d gotten older, Yang had begun to wonder if there was any truth in that. Upon bursting into the kitchen she was greeted by a sheet of smoke and shouting, nearly ejecting her lungs as she bent over, coughing into her knees as bodies frantically wove around her.

 

“What the living hell?!” she chokes, finding the nearest wall by the guide of her hand and bracing herself against it while she coughs. A familiar Australian voice breaks into her stream of expletives.

 

“Someone managed to pour cooking wine on the fucking grill!” it snarls, followed by a yelp of pain as something whacks the speaker. Yang still can’t see, eyes clamped shut in order to protect them from the smoke.

 

“Language, Velvet.” A second voice says calmly. 

 

“Well, it wasn't my grill!” Velvet objects, only to be met with another whacking noise. Yang continues to cough as the smoke slowly dissipates.

 

“Should I be concerned about the kitchen burning down?”

 

“Please, you did worse last time someone put you on cleaning duty.”

 

“Look, I didn't know that the stove's controls were that sensitive.” Yang snaps her eyes open just in time to see the towel but none left to react to it. The piece of cloth that smells heavily of cooking grease slaps her in the face and she hits the floor with a resounding _ thud  _ that makes the plates on the surrounding counters shake. 

 

“My point is,” Coco’s voice says from somewhere above her, “you don’t have any room to talk, Xiao Long. Now, what’s got your panties in a twist this time?”

 

“Why do you always assume I’m upset?” Yang grumbles and spits as she turns to deposit the towel onto the kitchen floor. A boot lands on her back between her shoulder blades and forces her back to the ground.

 

“Because whenever you’re upset your-” Coco is cut off when she receives a harsh elbow in the side, sending her crashing to the ground beside Yang and leaving Velvet standing over the both of them, arms crossed over her chest and disapproving frown on her face. “Ow.”

 

“Oh shut up,” the Australian woman blows a single piece of hair out of her eyes and fixes Yang with a look. “Look, sweetheart, we’ve been working here almost as long as you have, not to mention you sleep more often at our house than your own, we know when you’re pissed about something.”

 

Yang would perhaps find the position she was in offensive if she weren’t used to Coco and Velvet being overly physical in their affections. As such happens when you’re unceremoniously adopted by two of your coworkers barely five years your elders.

 

Coco had already been working at Neopolitan’s when Yang had started, Sous chef and all around kitchen mother, she had commanded any and every room she was in with enough authority to kill a horse. Needless to say, as a woman barely into her twenties, she had taken on an almost immediate resentment towards her. They had argued, teased, and gone through so many attempts to get the other fired that from an outsider’s perspective the two looked to be trying to get the other killed.

 

Then everything changed when Yang came into work on the anniversary of her father’s death. She’d kept quiet the whole shift, refused to indulge in Coco’s teasing and jabs she’d normally snap at in equal measure, and then left without a single word. Coco had cornered her the next day to ask what happened, and though she had initially told the older woman to fuck off, she kept persisting. Eventually whittling down Yang’s patience to the point where she snapped, shouting at her about her father’s death, mother’s abandonment, the responsibility she had for Ruby, and the desperation that had landed her the job in the first place.

 

She remembered that moment so clearly in her mind's eye, the expression that had crossed Coco’s face burned into the back of her eyelids. Fear, stalwart and plain as day. The woman had looked at Yang like she expected her to combust into flames on the spot.

 

She ran out on her shift and called in sick for the next two days. Eventually, she had been forced to return, lest she quit her job and go looking desperately for someone else to hire a high school drop-out with a criminal record.

 

Again, Coco had cornered her, but instead of reprimanding her or pestering her, this time the woman had grabbed Yang by the shoulders and hugged her tighter than Yang had been hugged in her life. Even her father’s hugs had paled in comparison, squeezing the life out of her and leaving her feet to dangle above the ground. She’d given herself a brief moment to wonder if that was what it was like when she hugged Ruby, before weaseling her way out of the older woman’s hold.

 

They’d been friends ever since.

 

Coco was still a snarky smart ass who enjoyed pulling Yang to the end of her patience, but she did so with a grin that radiated jest and knew where the line in the sand had been drawn long ago. Yang enjoyed sabotaging Coco’s day just as she had before, but if her pranks usually ended in nothing more than a wardrobe malfunction, well that was her own business.

 

Velvet, on the other hand, had come crashing into Yang’s life without hesitation. She’d entered the kitchen, introduced herself as Coco’s girlfriend, and essentially latched herself onto Yang like an overgrown, extra cuddly leech.

 

Yang was thankful for the two and knew at some deeper level that if it weren’t for them she probably wouldn’t have made it this far in life. That being said, she didn’t like to admit it.

 

“Well it’s none of your damn business,” Yang grumbles, shooting upwards to her feet and immediately going to slap her order ticket onto the counter, reaching for the closest bottle of champagne (she may have told Sun vodka, but she’s not that much of an asshole) and making to get out of the kitchen before she can be questioned further. Unfortunately, Coco is already waiting to block her way, arms crossed tightly over her chest.

 

“Yang.” She says sternly, the expression that crosses her face reminds her almost too much of the one she’d get from her father when she was out too late.

 

“I’m fine Coco,” she snarls, but the older woman doesn’t budge. Velvet steps between the two, eyes on Yang, but she can tell that she’s trying to comfort Coco about something by the way her shoulders tense like she’s facing down a mountain lion. Yang remembers the fear in Coco’s eyes.

 

“Yang,” Velvet tries again, her voice is much softer than Coco’s, less scolding but still stern, “your hand.”

 

Yang blinks, glancing down to see that, in fact, her fingers are trembling, wrapped tightly around the stem of the bottle she grabbed, but still shaking like a leaf in the wind. All the fight drops from Yang’s shoulders, dead and useless. She reaches out and sets the bottle down on the counter before drooping against it.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Velvet sighs, visibly relieved. Coco uncoils herself from her stance, marching to the other side of the counter and retrieving a glass, filling it up with water without even a word.

 

“You’re fine, you just scare us sometimes, kiddo.” Velvet pats Yang on the shoulder before hopping up onto the counter beside her, pulling her legs beneath herself.

 

“Understatement,” Coco scoffs, earning a glare from her fiance. Yang sighs heavier, slowly turning so that she can rest her forearms against the counter.

 

“Look, I apologized-”

 

“I heard you,” Coco sets the glass of water down in front of Yang, stern expression yet to leave, “Now, what’s got you so riled up?”

 

Yang takes one final glance at both Coco and Velvet’s expressions, before taking the glass and swallowing one long gulp of water. 

 

“You remember on Wednesday when I ran out of work?” She asks in a quiet voice. Velvet and Coco exchange glances. Slowly, Coco draws in a breath.

 

“Is this about the girl?” she says, gentler than Yang would’ve expected.

 

Something in Yang’s chest, a heat she’s become infinitely familiar with over the course of her life, recoils.  _ The girl _ , it seems to scream,  _ she was more than a girl. _ Yang doesn’t know what to do with that kind of reaction.

 

She  _ was _ a girl, a small girl with big blue eyes, who gave her a couple of stares and somehow set Yang’s blood on fire. She was just some random lady who was probably as rich and stuck up as literally every other person Yang served dinner to these days, but for some reason, she just couldn’t drag her out of her head. 

 

Those damn blue eyes were there every time she closed hers.

 

“Sort of,” she mutters, taking another gulp. The fire in her throat rages despite it. “Sun’s out in the dining area-”

 

“Wait, Sun’s here?” Velvet cuts in as her left eyebrow does a disappearing act, vanishing into her bangs. “I thought he was going to a concert?”

 

“He was, apparently it got rained out,” Yang barely restrains an eye-roll, “Anyway, I was giving him a hard time about not taking the shift, because I needed it off for Ruby’s birthday, he made a joke about not knowing what to order for his date, I snarked I was the one always about to get fired, he mentioned it, and… I don’t know.”

 

The glass makes a thump against the counter and what liquid is left in the glass makes an impressive leap into the air.

 

“I just got so… defensive.” The fire in Yang’s throat roars, pressing against the backs of her teeth and when she refuses to let it pass, the flames travel back down her throat to attack her chest instead. She presses the flat of her palm against the corner of the counter, willing the pressure to stop.

 

Velvet and Coco exchange glances once again, but this time Yang can practically see the conversation unfolding.

 

**You don’t think,** Coco’s eyebrows knit together.

 

_ I know. _ Velvet's nose twitches, twice.

 

**Well… shit. _I’m_ not telling her.**

 

_ You think I am? _

 

**Well** **_someone_ ** **has to.**

 

_ Fuck. _

 

“Yang,” Velvet’s voice breaks the staring competition and Yang slowly swings her gaze back over to her, raising her brows in question. Velvet sucks in her bottom lip, teeth twitching along it nervously. She casts a final glance at Coco in question, only to be met with a huff of air, before looking back at Yang. She pulls in a deep breath. “What exactly happened with the girl? You didn’t give us specifics last time.”

 

The heat in Yang’s chest doesn’t let up if anything it’s getting worse.

 

“I… I don’t know,” she’s getting really tired of saying that, “I just picked up the coat and it felt like my heart was trying to escape my chest,” the feeling is trying to make a comeback and she does _ not  _ like it. “I don’t even know how I knew where she was, just… one minute I’m running blindly, the next she’s there and I’ve never felt-”

 

She cuts herself off, eyes widening.  _ I’ve never felt that right in my life. _

 

Those are dangerous words.

 

“Velvet,” Coco’s voice cuts through Yang’s internalized panic. She glances up and the older woman is holding the glass Yang had been drinking.

 

It’s frozen solid.

 

“Wha-” Yang starts but is cut off by a hand landing on her shoulder. She glances over, only to meet Velvet’s pitying gaze.

 

“Yang… why don’t you come over sometime this week? I think we need to have a… discussion.” 

 

She doesn’t get a chance to question that when Coco deposits the bottle of champagne back into her hands and all but boots her out of the kitchen.

 

“The fuck?” she asks, perhaps rhetorically, perhaps to some sort of god she isn’t even sure exists, but doesn’t get a response either way. Her life just keeps getting weirder.

 

With a sigh that could move mountains, Yang makes her way back over to Sun’s table, depositing the bottle on the table and reaching within her pocket for the- what’s it called? The word can’t be uncorker, that just sounds wrong-

 

“Yang,” she pulls her gaze up from where she’d been getting ready to put the -seriously, what is it called?! -in the cork of the bottle, only to find two sets of eyes rather than one looking up at her.

 

Sun smiles the largest smile she’s seen him make to date, and his companion, some blue haired man she vaguely recognizes from somewhere, smiles as well, though admittedly much less bright.

 

“This is my boyfriend, Neptune, this is my friend Yang, the one who-”

 

“Managed to set you on fire at least twice,” the second man finishes for him, smiling up at Yang as if they’re sharing some sort of private joke. “Yes, I remember.” He offers a hand. Yang shakes it, she’s not a savage, and then returns to pull the cork out of the champagne bottle.

 

“That was an accident, I assure you,” Yang smirks at the memory of a certain server jumping around with his butt on fire. That was a treat. “I don’t normally set my friends on fire.”

 

“I think Coco would disagree,” Sun grumbles behind his menu, earning another glare from the blonde server.

 

“You and Coco deserved it,” Yang snarks back. Neptune chuckles heartily, bringing a hand up to his mouth as if that can hide the flash of perfect white teeth. He looks well dressed, a perfect suede suit opened to display a matching blue waistcoat, complete with a golden handkerchief in the breast pocket, and a black nylon tie. His skin is a warm bronzed shade, however pale as if he’s suffering from some sort of illness. His hair is blue, down to the roots, dyed so well that Yang has no idea of its original color. A set of golden, almost steampunk in appearance, goggles sit on the table beside him, gleaming in the candlelight.

 

Yang isn’t sure why, but something about this man makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

 

“So, what can I get you two to eat?” she asks, pulling out her pocketbook and hoping that this Neptune will at least order something she knows how to spell.

 

“Oh, uhm, I-” Sun starts, eyes glued to his menu as if he’s searching for buried treasure. You’d think a person who worked here would know what he wanted. Neptune reaches across the table to rest a perfectly manicured hand against Suns, displaying another pearly white smile. Yang notices his teeth are startlingly sharp.

 

“Allow me.” Neptune slowly turns his gaze up to meet hers, and when she looks into those midnight eyes, she can’t help but feel like she’s being dissected, cut up for careful and intense study. “We’ll have two orders of the house special, ranch for him, vinegar and oil for myself. Can I also get an order of the 6oz sirloin,” his eyes glint with some sort of light she cannot identify, “extra rare.”

 

Yang blinks, Neptune’s expression has returned to normal, but she can’t shake that strange glint from her memory. “Uh, sure,” she mutters, glancing down at her pocketbook, unsure how to continue. “You… sure you want it-”

 

“Yes,” Neptune interrupts before she can finish her sentence, that same glint back in his eyes. She recognizes it now, predatory. “I… have a certain condition,” his smile is sharp, literally, his teeth glint, the edges sharp enough to cut through skin, “that requires my meat… raw.”

 

Yang swallows unevenly. Why was that… familiar?

 

A flash of black hair, blazing red eyes.

 

She blinks, studying the young man for a minute, before making a note on her ticket.

 

“Alright, Sun, you cool with that?” she asks, only to find that Sun isn’t looking at her. He’s giving Neptune this look, one verging on calculating, which is something she never thought she’d see on his face.

 

“Neptune,” he hisses as if that’ll somehow impede her hearing despite the fact she’s standing less than two feet away from the two. Neptune raises his brow questioningly. “What are you doing?”

 

Neptune shrugs, “Personal business, don’t worry about it.” He picks up his knife, using the tip to clean out beneath his nails. Sun glares him down. Yang coughs, still receiving no reaction from the pair.

 

“Uh… so I’m gonna go…” she says quietly to no avail. With a final glance to see if they need her, she turns on her heel and begins her rounds.

 

A couple in the corner orders a large plate of shrimp she can’t pronounce the name of, and a trio of businessmen demand that she bring them the best wine they have, before she manages to drag herself back into the kitchen, still trying to shake off the memory of the predatory look in Sun’s boyfriend’s eyes. Why was that familiar? Why the fuck did that look familiar?

 

Coco and Velvet are sitting exactly where she left them, whispering frantically back and forth. Coco’s arms have come up to wrap around Velvet’s waist and Velvet’s hands are on her shoulders, they’re still speaking in fash hushed words, but their eyes don’t leave each other's faces, even when Yang walks by to slam down her order ticket and pick up the tray of food she’d ordered last time. 

 

“You guys done being gay over there, or what?” Yang asks, half wishing she knew why everyone was being so secretive today. Coco and Velvet’s heads whip towards her, successfully managing to headbutt each other in the process and send them recoiling away with hands pressed to their foreheads. Yang snorts, okay, maybe she’s okay with the secrets if that’s going to be their reaction every time.

 

“Jesus Yang!” Coco complains, cradling her skull while Velvet hides her face in her hands. The red in her cheeks suggests it has very little to do with the head bump.

 

“Well then quit being gay in the corner and get back to work,” Yang snipes, doing absolutely nothing to hide her smile, and turning to parade back out the kitchen door.

 

She makes her rounds once again, taking three orders, dropping off her tray to a group of five college students who look like they’re going to try their hardest to somehow consume two soups between them, and returning to the kitchen without hassle. Coco and Velvet have returned to their posts by that point, and she grabs Sun’s tray. She suddenly realizes how weird of an order it is. Two garden salads, something she’s never thought that Sun would enjoy, and a single slab of meat that looks as if it hasn’t even touched the grill. Her stomach turns as she makes her way out of the kitchen.

 

However, when she reaches the table, it’s empty. All that’s left is a single stack of bills and a red card written in neat black ink:

 

(Xxx)xxx-xxxx

Call me, we need to have a chat about my ‘pale-friend’

-Neptune V.


	4. Snowflake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is short, but I didn't want to change pov in the middle of the chapter, so idk.   
> In other news, hi! I'm alive! Also, that season finale am I right? Jesus Christ, roosterteeth, bravo!   
> I dunno if I'll continue this, mostly bc I have a lot of work to do for school and getting prepared for senior year. Wishing you all the best!

Admittedly, very little was known about dragons.

 

It was assumed that they weren’t the large, reptilian, bloodthirsty creatures of human myth. Most everything in human myth was exaggerated, but the truth remained that, well, no one could prove human myth wrong.

 

Weiss had heard stories, nothing more than tales whispered to children before bed or exaggerated Hollywood films, that talked of fearsome beasts, their gaping maws spitting out fire and words that made little to no sense. Weiss had read, poured over countless textbooks about the history of supernatural beings, either out of curiosity or sheer boredom, she didn’t really know.

 

The most she had been able to gather was this:

  1. Dragons had two forms, the draconic one, and the human, and one rarely influenced the other. The human form could share little to no characteristics with the draconic, unlike her own; she was stuck with the same shade of fluffy white hair and blue eyes no matter what form she took.
  2. Intendeds did indeed exist, however, the nature of such bonds were not explained in any capacity. At best, she found a shaky account of a man whose sister had been taken hostage by such a beast, only to find later that the sister in question had wound up bearing the beast’s children. She doubted the dragon had remained around to become a parent.
  3. While most of these traits were shared, there were two different types of dragons. Western and Eastern. 
    1. Western dragons tended to be materialistic, they sought out abandoned mines, and would sometimes resort to straight up theft in order to gather the gold and jewels they so desired. They weren’t strict, per se, with what they gathered, but seemed to be attracted to shiny things as opposed to priceless paintings.
    2. Eastern dragons, on the other hand, while still possessive, were more into the academic side of things. They sought knowledge, skills, fame, cunning. Every source she could find had painted them as the more dangerous of the two, as their intelligence was often far beyond that of a human, and intelligence, one source claimed, “leads to forgetting the worth of other lifeforms.”



 

Weiss didn’t exactly take encouragement from either of those descriptions.

 

According to the books, what she could expect from her future spouse, at best, was kleptomaniac with a hoarding problem, and at worst, a power-hungry narcissist. Fucking fantastic.

 

Weiss releases a loud sigh and drops her book atop her chest, staring at the ceiling of her apartment, silently willing it to collapse atop her and end her suffering. Alas, that probably wasn’t going to happen any time soon. 

 

Weiss lived in what could be described as, if she was being nice, a modern apartment. Polished linoleum surfaces and empty wooden floors, white walls dotted with the occasional art piece that she had no idea what was supposed to mimicking, and a tall industrial ceiling above her head that she knew, despite several attempts, was impossible to reach. If she were anyone else, her apartment would probably be her pride and joy. It was clean, it was nice, it was better than what most people her age were stuck in.

 

But Weiss wasn’t anyone else, she was Weiss, and Weiss was never easy to satisfy.

 

It was the last remnant she had of her father, an apartment she’d hastily bought with his money under her own name before cutting the man off, and at the time it had been a  good decision, it still was, but now she couldn’t help but look at the empty white walls and rooms lacking in personality and think that she lives in a museum.

 

Its sad and awful, her couch is often times empty, and the few times it is occupied by either Neptune or Blake, she can’t help but stare because they look so small. The couch is large, it’s comfortable, it’s supposed to be like that, but when her adult male friend who is much larger than her stretches across it, he’s swallowed by the leather, sinking into black, and disappearing from view.

 

Blake can stand in her kitchen, flicking through her almost empty fridge and she just blends into the black counters and white floor. She's swallowed whole and Weiss just stares because her home is a void, and there’s not really anything she can do about that.

 

Her phone jumps to life in her pocket, squealing in protest from where it’s been pressed against the side of her bed, between her hip bone and the wall. She reaches down with deft fingers and slides the contraption out, glaring at the screen as if it’s personally offended her. Blake Belladonna's confused face stares back at her, the bauble of a Santa hat hanging just between her eyes as she stares at it, mouth screwed up in a desperate attempt to keep control of where her hands are. She’d taken the photo almost a year ago, and it’s still her favorite one she has of her. 

 

Weiss sucks in a deep breath and lets it all out in one heavy sigh that she’s sure could move mountains if she tried hard enough. With one last look at the ceiling, pleading silently for the sweet release of death, she picks up the phone.

 

“What?” Weiss snaps.

 

“Well excuse me for being concerned about my friend currently going through an identity crisis who disappeared last night and didn’t call me when she got back home.” Blake’s voice is as steady as ever, and Weiss has never been more thankful for it. Blake has been a rock in Weiss’s tumbling life since before she slowly distanced herself from her overbearing and uncaring father. 

 

If it weren’t for her, Weiss isn’t sure she could guarantee her continued existence.

 

“Okay, Okay, I should’ve called,” she murmurs and slowly forces her tired limbs to move from their places among the bedsheets.

 

“Yeah, no shit Sherlock,” Blake has always been the bluntest person Weiss knew, sister included. That honesty usually translated into conversations that never lasted longer than necessary and the witch consistently calling Weiss out for her bullshit. On the other hand, “What the hell happened last night?”

 

Weiss doesn’t quite suppress the sigh in time, leaving a puff of disgruntled air to escape her mouth and into the receiver before she can think better of it. She receives a set of disapproving clicks in return.

 

“Weiss.” Blake’s voice hardens. “What did you do?”

 

“I didn’t do anything!” she complains, now somewhat upright and searching the floor for her slippers. Plush cream carpet is fine, but the hardwood floors of the rest of her apartment never retain heat as they should, and though it’s barely November, the air is already far too chilly for her liking.

 

“And I’m the queen of England,” Blake deadpans. Weiss releases another sigh.

 

“Blake,” she searches for some sort of excuse and comes up empty, “look it’s a long story-”

 

“You do remember that it's literally impossible for you to lie to me?” Blake doesn’t pull any punches and she’s finally forced to accept that the truth is coming out of her, one way or another.

 

“You’re an asshole, you know that?” Weiss says, finally locating her slippers beneath the edge of her bed’s comforter and sliding her feet into them. 

 

“That’s why we get along so well.”

 

“Cheeky.” Weiss makes her way into the kitchen and kicks open the fridge. When was the last time she went to the store?

 

“Seriously, what happened?” Blake tries again and Weiss exhales through her nose.

 

“After I finished my swim there were these two girls on the pier,” Weiss recalls a tall redhead and a pair of startling silver eyes. “I’m pretty sure one of them was kin with my…” she lets the sentence hang. There isn’t really a term for a selkie bondmate, not one as specific as  _ Intended _ but she doesn’t know if it's too weird to use the dragon term or not when she doesn’t even know if the woman is _ actually _ a dragon.

 

“Let me guess,” Blake takes over for her, “you had another mental breakdown and freaked out on the poor girl?”

 

Weiss snorts indignantly and finally grabs a hold of the singular water bottle in her fridge and closes the door.

 

“Have a little faith in me,” she grumbles, “I didn’t do anything of the sort.”

 

“So you just remained in seal form, in the middle of the harbor, in Louisiana, which is known for its seal marine life.”

 

“Hey, don’t come lecturing me about staying out of sight, cat girl.”

 

“At least tell me they didn’t notice you.”

 

Weiss winces, “Well…”

 

“Weiss.” 

 

Weiss flops down against her counter, sliding from her feet to her butt with all the grace of a wet noodle.

 

“Look, I panicked okay.”

 

In the background, she can hear chuckling and it takes her a minute to recognize it.

 

“Is that Neptune with you?!” she snaps.

 

“And Sun,” Blake responds and Weiss can hear the poorly hidden smile in her voice.

 

“Fangface can laugh at me when he gets better at flirting, alright.” 

 

“Hey!” Neptune’s muffled voice calls followed almost immediately afterward by a cackling laugh that she recognizes as belonging to one Sun Wukong.

 

Sun wasn’t her favorite person, far from it in fact, but he made Neptune happy and even if she didn’t totally approve of Neptune’s courting style, she had to admit it was effective. He and Sun had hardly been together for more than a year before Neptune told him the truth of his nature. At the time it’d been a roller coaster of making sure that Sun didn’t go running for the hills, but in hindsight, finding out your boyfriend is a serial killer in his spare time wasn’t exactly a comforting ideal.

 

“I highly doubt that's going to be happening any time soon,” Blake murmurs flatly, “check back in a couple centuries.”

 

“I can hear you, you know!” Neptune calls once again. Sun’s laughter continues to ring out over the line.

 

“What is he even doing there?” Weiss questions once she’s regained her composure, glancing over the top of her counter to see that it is, in fact, morning, and their resident vampire should be in bed by now.

 

“I’m not entirely sure,” Blake’s voice turns accusatory and she can feel the glare she’s casting at him over the phone. “That’s partially why I called. He came in a couple hours ago yelling frantically about something to do with your little… dragon problem.”

 

Weiss nearly chokes on her water, “Why didn’t you call me earlier?!”

 

“I tried! I’ve been calling you for the past three hours.” She can hear the underlying message in Blake’s voice:  _ what happened and what has you freaking out now? _

 

“Well, would he be kind enough to inform me what information he has on my “dragon problem?” Weiss ignores it best she can. That’s a discussion for another time.

 

“Her name is Yang!” she hears a voice, not Neptune’s, Sun’s, shout over the line. Blake sighs heavily.

 

“Apparently she’s one of Sun’s friends.” The disapproval in her voice is thick enough to be cut.

 

Weiss hums noncommittally. That doesn’t tell her much, except that she probably has horrid tastes in music if she can put up with Sun’s.

 

“She likes puns and she has the coordination of a flamingo with weights tied to its ankles!” Sun yells again and Weiss resists the urge to laugh, she’d never let the man know that he successfully humored her.

 

“And?” she asks in the steadiest voice she can muster, “Is she a dragon?”

 

The receiver is silent for a moment before Blake responds, voice dripping with mild confusion.

 

“A shrug.”

 

Weiss blinks. “A shrug?”

 

“Yes,” Blake’s voice fades as she leans away from the phone, “what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

 

“It means that I only got involved with all this supernatural stuff recently.” Weiss hates it when he makes a good point. “I don’t know what signs to look for.”

 

“Does she occasionally spew out fire and smoke when she gets mad?” Weiss deadpans.

 

Neptune chuckles dryly, “If she’s been a dragon all her life she should have better control over her emotions than you, snowflake.”

 

Sun cackles, “That’s a fucking lie!”

 

Weiss frowns and pushes herself upwards a little, settling with her feet crossed beneath her.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“That she has the temper of a particularly sensitive magpie.”

 

“You’ve been spending too much time with that Aussie girl,” Neptune grumbles.

 

“Okay, so she’s easily angered,” Blake cuts in before the two can start bickering again. “Does she show any signs when she’s angry? Increased heat output, change in eye or skin coloration?”

 

“Not that I know of,” Sun mutters, “but to be fair I try to get  _ away  _ from her when she’s mad.”

 

“Didn’t you say she set you on fire twice?”

 

“Okay, look, the first time was because I left her alone on cleaning duty, and literally everything was on fire. The second time… I’m not actually sure.”

 

“She set you on fire?” Weiss hisses, disbelieving.

 

“I mean, wouldn’t you?” Blake asks, and she can hear the indignant cries of the boy on the other end followed by a scuffle that suggests Sun tried to get revenge for the comment.

 

Weiss tries to process that new information. So, she sets things on fire when she gets angry, well that definitely was a point in favor of the dragon theory, but did not really garner a point in either the Western or eastern direction. A bad temper certainly sounded like a western dragon, but she didn’t really know if she should continue to try and figure out her bondmate without even speaking to the woman.

 

“Weiss?” Neptune’s tired voice interrupts her thought process and she blinks her way back to reality. The water bottle is shaking in her hand.

 

“I’m still here,” she murmurs. She can hear what sounds like books hitting the floor over the receiver, along with exaggerated grunts of pain.

 

“Look, the reason I wanted to talk to you.” Neptune’s never been much of a morning person. Most vampires simply have a day-night cycle opposite a humans, but Neptune’s makes her think that back when the boy was human he must have gone to bed before the sun even set. As it is, the latest she’s ever seen him stay up was ten, and at that point, he looked ready to crash. “Is because, whoever she is, she reeks like an old one.”

 

Weiss can feel her blood running cold.

 

“What?”

 

Neptune shushes her, in the background something, probably a bookcase, topples over.

 

“I don’t want to alarm Blake, you remember what happened with… you know who…”

 

Weiss sucks in a breath, “and what makes you think this won’t be a repeat?”

 

“She doesn’t smell like fire.” Neptune’s sense of smell is better than hers has ever been, but at this moment, she has to question it.

 

“The dragon, who supposedly breathes fire, and has set your boyfriend aflame multiple times, doesn’t smell like fire?”

 

“No.” He doesn’t even question it. “She smells like the sun.”

 

Weiss blinks.

 

“I can’t even begin to describe how monumentally stupid that sounds.”

 

Neptune sighs harshly, “Look, I don’t know how else to put it. ‘You know who’ smelled like brimstone and fire and smoke. She smells like sunlight and maybe a little bit of ozone if I was hard pressed.”

 

“What does sunlight even smell like?”

 

“Warmth.”

 

“Which doesn’t smell like fire?”

 

“Weiss,” Neptune’s voice loses all pretenses of civility and that’s how she knows he’s being as serious as he can be. She often forgets the boy is over two centuries old, young for vampire standards, but older than she’ll ever be. “I… what I’m trying to say is I don’t think you have anything to fear from her. I don’t think that she returned your coat with any ill intent.”

 

Weiss feels some of the tension in her shoulders drop.

 

“I… thank you, Neptune.” She hears a small huff against her ear.

 

“Careful Snowflake, if you keep doing that I’ll start to think you’re going soft.” She rolls her eyes with much more force than necessary. “Now what’s this I hear about you having a run in with her kin?”

 

Weiss lets out a heavy sigh, “Look, all I did was overhear a conversation between her and her girlfriend.”

 

“Well, that’s still some interaction, any information you manage to get?”

 

Weiss presses her brows together and tries her hardest to remember what exactly she heard the night before.

 

“Her sister is incredibly hyper and I think she’s dating an Olympic wrestler.”

 

“That’s it?” Neptune deadpans.

 

“Well, they were a bit busy arguing about something to do with destiny and… out running taxis?”

 

“So they were talking about Intendeds?” Neptune volunteers and Weiss hums noncommittally.

 

“They didn’t use that term, but it’s possible.” Weiss recalls the insistent ‘It can’t be a coincidence!’

 

“Neptune…” an Idea begins to form in her head, and she’s not entirely sure if that’s a good thing or a bad one.

 

“Yeah?” He asks.

 

“Is it… possible for someone to grow up without knowing they’re… not human?”

 

Silence answers her. She hears a sharp intake of breath, the crashing and yelling in the background slowly dying down as she can hear Sun whining about something. Then,

 

“I need to look into something.” The line goes dead.


	5. Dragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Do you believe in ghosts?”
> 
> Once again Yang is surprised. It seems that Sun has her on her toes today.
> 
> "No."
> 
> "Why?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Snow for everything. Here's to many more works together buddy! -M

Yang’s had a hell of a night.

 

She’s worked hard weekends before but this one, this one takes the cake. On those hell-sent nights, she usually doesn’t make it any further than Coco’s couch before collapsing into it and resigning herself to call Ruby when she wakes up, too tired to attempt the three-block journey back to her own apartment. Tonight was different however, tonight she’s not just physically tired (running around in uncomfortable work shoes and stuffy collared shirts she’s not allowed to roll up will do that), she’s also emotionally exhausted.

 

Coco and Velvet just can’t keep their noses to themselves, and Sun and his weird boyfriend left her to pay off their unfinished bottle of champagne, by the end of the night she was ready to just find a table to curl up underneath and call it a night.

 

However, right as her shift finally ended, Takashi informed her that she was stuck locking up tonight, and everyone else cheered before leaving the poor, disheveled, and frankly exhausted woman to her fate of making sure every ridiculously large stack of money, chair, table, dish, pot, pan, utensil, towel, and uniform was in place. 

 

Around 8 o’clock the next morning, a near twelve hours since her shift began, Yang could begin her daylight stumble through the streets of New Orleans, barely able to get her brain in enough shape to remember that Coco and Velvet weren’t home because Coco’s cousin, or whatever, was in town, so she’d have to stumble the full three blocks home, rather than the half she usually would in this condition.

 

By the time Yang reaches the door of her measly, 500 sq ft apartment, she has to drag herself up the steps on her hands and knees and try four times to get the stupid keys in the lock. But finally,  _ finally _ , the door’s lock clicks and the slab of unforgiving fake-mahogany gives way to a hard wooden entryway, and Yang finds just enough energy to scrape herself off the front step and pour her remains into the nearest carpeted surface and release a final, pitiful, groan of victory.

 

“Good Morning to you too, Yang.” A much too chipper voice announces itself from just beyond Yang’s range of vision and her groan of victory quickly turns to one of resentment. The voice chuckles before she hears something being set down, a book if she had to guess, and soft, sock-footed footsteps move towards her head.

 

“What are you doing here, Pyrrha?” Yang asks the carpet, she absolutely refuses to lift her head again until she’s had at least three hours of sleep. That’s about all she gets these days anyway.

 

A socked foot hooks just beneath her shoulder before nudging her over so that she’s on her back and looking up blearily at the woman who has the audacity to poke the proverbial bear. “Waiting for your sister to wake up, you do remember what last night was?”

 

Once again, Yang groans. Of course she does, it’s what she’s been trying to get off for the past three weeks, but failed to thanks to little miss ‘I’m too good to be making 20 an hour for handing people food’. All because of one little ungrateful brat, she’s missed her sister’s 21st birthday, and consequently, had to let Pyrrha take Ruby out for her first night of legal drinking without her.

 

She hates being a responsible adult.

 

“Pyrrha?” she asks her sister’s longtime girlfriend, who has probably seen her do this kind of thing enough times to fully expect what’s coming next.

 

“Yes?” She answers, still as nice and concerned as the first time she did.

 

“Kill me.” 

 

“That goes against my moral code.”

 

“I’ll pay you.”

 

“Yang, I could buy your house and everything in it with my pocket change.”

 

“Please?”

 

“I don’t think Ruby would be happy about you being dead and I enjoy a happy Ruby more than a mopey one.”

 

With that, Yang lets out a final defeated groan before raising one arm that is much too heavy for her liking. Pyrrha smirks in victory and then wraps her fingertips around Yang’s arm and tugs her to her feet.

 

“What has you so tired, anyway?” she asks, calmly leading Yang by the wrist to the nearest plush surface which just so happens to be the old leatherback couch, that thing was there when Yang moved in and she just never bothered to get rid of it. The poor thing looks ready to fall apart at the lightest breeze, and dumps her atop it. “Did Coco leave you on cleaning duty again?”

 

“After the last time, I’m officially not allowed to touch a stove inside that building again, even if lives depend on it.” Yang’s voice makes a hollow echoing noise against the leather. Pyrrha snorts.

 

“It wasn’t that bad.”

 

“You weren’t in the building.”

 

The following chuckle is only slightly muffled by Pyrrha disappearing behind the half-wall that separates the kitchen and living room. 

 

“No, and I suppose I should be grateful for that.” She returns with a mug of steaming liquid that she deposits on the coffee table without preamble. Yang grunts her thanks and takes the liquid, nearly downing the whole thing in one go. Pyrrha wrinkles her nose.

 

“I'll never understand how you two do that.”

 

“Heat tolerance runs in the family.” Yang shrugs. “As for why I'm so tired… Coco and Velvet were acting weird.”

 

Pyrrha frowns, and not in the concerned way she's gotten used to from the girl. The corners of her mouth turn down like normal, but her brow pinches together, creating a crease that she's far too young to have so prominently.

 

“How so?” Calmly, no-  _ practiced _ , Pyrrha settles her hands in her lap. 

 

Yang tugs on her lower lip with her teeth. “I dunno…” carefully, she sets down her mug, it’s already empty and just holding the retained heat. “Just… they wanted to talk about the weird thing that happened on Wednesday, and then, while we were talking, get this, a glass of water just froze on its own.” She lets out a slightly incredulous chuckle. Pyrrha's frown deepens.

 

“Just randomly?” She asks and Yang nods.

 

“Yeah, then I went to go take Sun's order- by the way, his concert got rained out so he had absolutely no reason to leave me alone on that shift, bastard- and his weirdo boyfriend orders this, like, almost raw steak, and then they just fucking bolt. Don't even stay to pay for the champagne they asked for. Sun's gonna get it next-”

 

“What did he look like?” Pyrrha interrupts, and Yang blinks. She was only getting started.

 

“Huh?”

 

“Sun's boyfriend.” The crease in her brow hasn't left.

 

“Uh…” Yang blinks again, confused. Pyrrha usually has the patience of a saint, but even then she has hardly ever taken an interest, or paid attention, to her rants. Ruby likes to routinely remind her that she sounds like their father once she gets going, but Coco and Velvet just tell her to shut up. Pyrrha is usually the only one patient enough to sit through the whole thing, even if she retains none of it or dozes off at some point in the middle.

 

Now though, she’s watching Yang like she’s a science experiment just waiting to go wrong.

 

“He was…” vaguely she remembers a well-dressed young man with blue hair, “way too dressed up for Sun, like, the guy never even wears a proper shirt and this dude just showed up in a full suede suit-”

 

“What about his complexion?” Pyrrha asks, her gaze is sharp and, if she looked closely enough, she might describe the pupils as shrinking.

 

“Now that you mention it,” Yang nods, still picturing the man’s strange gold goggles and sharp, dark eyes. Predatory. “He was like, he’s gotta be like Arabic or something, but he was pale. He might’ve been sick, wouldn’t be surprised if his diet consists of raw meat.”

 

“His eyes?” Pyrrha’s hands remain in her lap, as poised as ever, but the fingers have closed around the other wrist, clenching half-moon marks into tanned Mediterranean skin. Her right knee has begun to bounce up and down, and her gaze has yet to move from Yang’s, but her pupils are focused on something far beyond yang’s own now. “His behavior, was he acting extremely possessive of Sun? Has Sun ever mentioned him before tonight? Did he have-”

 

“Pyrrha.” Yang interrupts the oncoming torrent of questions, each more absurd than the last. Her gaze snaps back to reality and she immediately stops moving, her knee goes still, but her hands remain clenched in her lap, if anything, Pyrrha’s grip gets tighter. 

 

“I apologize,” for some reason Yang can no longer see her eyes clearly, the irises are hidden behind her bangs and her voice has taken on an almost robotic quality. “I got carried away.”

 

“What’s going on Pyrrha?” Yang sits forwards, ignoring the twinge in her spine that comes with the motion. This is more important right now. “Are you worried about Sun?”

 

“What?” Pyrrha raises her head in a quick, surprised movement, and she  _ swears _ for an instant her eyes are gold. 

 

Then it’s gone.

 

“Pyrrha…” slowly, as if she fears that she’s going to frighten a small animal, Yang reaches across the coffee table and places a hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

 

She blinks, once, twice, then shakes her head as if dismissing a spiderweb.

 

“Yes, sorry, I’ve… had a long night. You know what Ruby’s like, I love her, but that girl has enough energy to power the Empire State Building.” The smile painted across Pyrrha’s lips is far too close to sincere for Yang’s liking.

 

“Right…” Yang doesn’t lift her hand, and Pyrrha doesn’t move, so for a moment they’re just staring into each other's faces, each trying to convince the other of something, whatever  _ ‘it’ _ was, Yang isn’t quite sure.

 

She opens her mouth to try and ask again,  _ what _ she’s asking eludes her, but just as she takes in the breath a new voice speaks.

 

“Am I interrupting something?”

 

Ruby stands in the doorway looking a little better than warmed-over-roadkill, her hair stands up in all directions and there’s a distinctly alcoholic-scent that seems to follow her like a second shadow. Before Yang can say anything Pyrrha springs to her feet, effectively getting herself out of Yang’s hold.

 

“Not at all!” her voice is much too chipper for anyone at this hour, especially someone who hadn’t slept the previous night. “How’re you feeling?”

 

She’s already at Ruby’s side, slipping a hand behind her shoulders and pointedly avoiding Yang’s interrogating glare. Ruby yawns and buries her face into her girlfriend’s shoulder to just barely hide it.

 

“Like I got hit by a freight train,” comes the muffled reply.

 

Yang frowns and gives Pyrrha a final heated glare before abandoning the interrogation for now. She can’t hide from her forever, whatever is going on she’ll strangle it out of her eventually.

 

“Welcome to the world of hangovers, sister dear.” Yang pulls herself to her feet, ignores the cracks of protest her back makes, and then marches into the kitchen. A wide, slightly painful, smile plasters itself over her face as she begins to pull breakfast materials from their small (probably older than she is) fridge. “And happy birthday.”

 

She’d gotten used to the fact that Ruby’s breakfast would be her dinner, and vice versa, over the past year. She loved her sister dearly, and would do anything to carve out as much time as possible for her, but her schedule demanded more often than not that she arrived home before Ruby awoke and left well after the girl was asleep, some days she could almost entirely forget the girl still lived in her apartment. It was only mornings like this, when she arrived home late and Ruby woke early, that they were able to enjoy a proper meal together, and she cherished them as much as possible. Strange and suspicious girlfriends aside.

 

“Thank you, but I’m never drinking again!” Ruby declares into Pyrrha’s shoulder, only to be met with a sympathetic chuckle from the red-head.

 

“They all say that, Rubes.” Yang drops the old cast-iron onto their ancient stove and flicks it on. The heat from the flames is comforting, it reminds her of when dad tried to teach her how to cook the first time and she just wanted to sit and watch the flames lick the bottom of the pot instead of listening to his instructions. 

 

She misses that old man.

 

“Well  _ I  _ mean it!” Finally Ruby pulls her face from Pyrrha’s shoulder to send a raspberry Yang’s way. Yang responds in kind with a certain finger and receives an indignant gasp. “Yang!”

 

“Yes, sister dear?” She glances over her shoulder and offers her most innocent smile. Ruby’s glare is a sight to behold, the hardened eyes of a warrior mismatched with the sweetest face in existence. It’s absolutely ridiculous, but she knows better than to laugh and so she just continues smiling that ‘not-so-innocent’ smile.

 

“You’re a meanie!”

 

Gasping, Yang clutches her chest, nearly dropping to her knees in a mock wound. “My own sister! Such vulgar language. I do believe that I’m feeling faint!”

 

“Yaaa _ aaaAAaAaang _ !”

 

“Pyrrha, have you ever heard such language?” She turns her mock horror on her sister’s chosen weirdo, and if there’s a bit of a malicious glint in her eyes, well that’s her own business.

 

She blinks, apparently not expecting to get dragged into the conversation, “Huh?” she voices, only for Ruby to begin squeaking out Yang’s crime of using inappropriate gestures. Yang just chuckles to herself and returns to dumping eggs into the pan.

 

“It’s nine in the morning, she shouldn’t be cursing at nine in the morning!”

 

“Dear, I believe that your sister isn’t exactly what we call clean-minded, or mouthed in this case-”

 

“I don’t care! I just woke up, I don’t want to see that first thing in the morning!”

 

“I hate to remind you, but which one of us has a hickey on the side of their neck?” Yang interrupts. A loud squeak echoes behind her, followed immediately by the sound of a hand smacking over flesh in a belated attempt at hiding the evidence. She chuckles.

 

“If I have to see that, then you can live with my hand gestures, by the way, Pyrrha?” She turns around, just barely making an attempt at making eye contact with the taller woman. Her face is pink, a color that is impressively close to her hair, but not quite there yet. Well, she can fix that. “I want my shorts back, though I do recommend you wash them  first.”

 

Bingo. She ducks her head in shame and Ruby actually jumps across the island separating them to smack Yang on the arm.

 

“Hey!” She quickly drops the pan to turn and try and stop the oncoming onslaught. 

 

“No!” Ruby declares and then proceeds to scamper her way up Yang’s torso, crossing her ankles around her waist, and continue smacking her on the back of the head. Yang lets out a bellow of laughter and starts spinning to attempt and shake her little monster loose, to no avail.

 

“Taste my wrath, little sister!”

 

“Stop! Bullying! My! Girlfriend!”

 

Yang gasps in mock offense once again, this time dropping to the floor rather than continue her spinning, and lays herself out, sprawled atop the wriggling body attempting to escape her weight.

 

“Pyrrha, you have turned my sister against me! How could you? Poisoning such a pure, innocent soul?!”

 

“I am not pure, nor innocent!” Ruby argues, though her voice is muffled from beneath the mane that Yang sometimes refers to as hair. Vaguely, she can feel her sister’s hands trying to pry themselves free from the weight of her back, and so she makes a show of raising her body with her legs as to put more weight on her spine, and consequently, her sister.

 

“Such insolence!”

 

“Leff- me go-”

 

“I am in AGONY at this turn of events!”

 

“Pyrrha!”

 

“My own flesh and blood-!”

 

“Yang,” Pyrrha finally breaks in and Yang cracks an eyelid to watch as the taller woman gives her a look somewhere between amused and lingering embarrassment. “You’re going to suffocate your sister.”

 

Yang hums noncommittally despite the muffled protests in the back of her head.

 

“Also your breakfast is burning.”

 

Finally, with a heavy, heavy sigh, Yang springs upwards, allowing her sister to cry out in relief and being able to breathe once again, and calmly grabs the skillet and flips over the charred remains of what was supposed to be her eggs.

 

“Is breakfast with you two always this entertaining?” she questions and Ruby groans.

 

“Usually there’s less smushing-”

 

“And, there’s usually more flying food,” Yang adds.

 

With a chuckle that Yang swears is reserved for her sister alone, Pyrrha offers her hand to her flattened girlfriend. She pretends not to notice that it takes a second before Ruby actually takes it, or the persistently starry-eyed gaze that seems to follow the girl around.

 

Pyrrha has always been… a character was certainly one way to describe it.

 

She’d been informed of the girl’s existence the day that Ruby met her, (It’d be hard not to. She’d been getting ready for work when Ruby suddenly burst through the front door, soaking wet, and shouting that she was an idiot, moron, and “so, so gay Yang! Like cookies and milk, I am gay!” That had  _ so _ not been how she expected her day to start.) but had been yet to meet her for the first six months of their courtship. Part of that was her fault, she knew. Ruby had a reputation for losing dates not long after they became acquainted with the angry elder sister that she had waiting for her to come home every night. She certainly couldn’t blame Ruby for wanting to forge a strong relationship before she sent her girlfriend out to meet the dogs of war.

 

However, upon actually meeting the woman (and nearly having a heart attack at the fact that her little baby sister was apparently dating an Olympic wrestler, perhaps the only woman alive able to give her a run for her money in the fighting department.) she discovered that perhaps their late meeting wasn’t  _ all _ her fault.

 

She was skittish, something that Yang didn’t understand when she was easily three inches taller than herself and well muscled enough to make most thugs think twice, and the ones who didn’t, severely regret it. But she oftentimes would link arms with Ruby, sometimes outright scoop the girl up into her arms, at things that even Yang wouldn’t think dangerous to her. She had a vivid memory at Pyrrha spotting a small black cat and actually grabbing the nearest blunt object and brandishing it like a club. Ruby had laughed it off, but Yang had been shooting curious glances at her the rest of the day, only to be met with an apologetic smile that she’d since learned was practiced rather than genuine.

 

That was the other thing, the one that made her skin crawl and, though she’d lost the argument with Ruby dozens of times by now, she just could never fully trust the woman. Too many of her expressions, responses, exclamations, reactions, were practiced, like she were in a play that she’d already performed a dozen times and grown tired of the motions. Mostly, those reactions seemed reserved for Yang, and the ones she gave Ruby were tinged with enough fondness that she could forgive them. However, sometimes, when she knew that Pyrrha didn’t think her to be looking, her smile would slip, and she’d watch after Ruby with an expression far too similar to longing for her liking.

 

Pyrrha has been in her life for almost two years now, and she still can’t find it within herself to trust the woman, because today, as much as she wishes it weren’t, is about par for the course. She’s weird, enough to make even Ruby look normal by comparison and, even though she loves her sister, the girl was obsessed with knives and guns to a degree that even made Yang think twice about handing her a butter knife.

 

Pyrrha is weird, jumpy, and above all else, suspicious. She’s too practiced, too polite, too… too Pyrrha. There’s something that she’s hiding, of that much Yang is sure, and no matter how many times she brings it up to her, Ruby just dismisses it. Yang has already resigned herself to picking up the inevitable pieces long ago.

 

“Yang!” Ruby’s call breaks her thread of conscious thought and only then does she realize that her eggs are beyond saving at this point. The sigh that she releases comes from her stomach and causes her shoulders to roll forward.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Your phone is ringing!” she shouts.

 

Yang just barely restrains a second sigh and quickly dumps the remains of her eggs into the garbage can. “Take this over for me, will ya?” she smiles at Ruby, hoping to pass off her mistake for one of exhaustion, Ruby’s furrowed brow and slight pout tell her that she failed in the attempt.

 

Pyrrha watches her as she crosses out of the room to grab her cell, and for a moment Yang is reminded of golden irises, then it’s gone, and she’s only meeting green eyes as they return to gaze upon her much smaller girlfriend.

 

A weight drops in the pit of her stomach.

 

Her phone, along with her keys, always end up on top of the coffee table in the living room. Even on the rare occasions that she  _ does _ make it all the way to her room before she crashes, somehow in the morning, technically evening for all the normal people, she finds them littered on the coffee table rather than her nightstand.

 

The thing is old, beat up, and one of the few things that have stayed with her and Ruby. Giving up their childhood home had been hard, but Yang just couldn’t afford to keep it. She’d kept that damn coffee table though, her father once told her that it belonged to their family for a very long time, and at that point in her life, when her father was gone like everyone else and all she had left was a younger sister who seemed determined to fly the nest, she’d sunk her teeth into anything even remotely permanent. Even if that was just an old coffee table with enough coffee rings that she couldn’t tell if there was an initial pattern in it or not.

 

Her phone vibrates, rattling the aged wood and making the sound much louder than it should be for such a small device to make. With all the energy she can muster she smooths out her voice and answers without biting the other person’s head off-

 

“What?!” or not.

 

“Woah, Jesus, what happened to you?!” the voice on the other end yelps and Yang feels every last shred of her patience drop to her toes.

 

“I got left alone on a TWELVE HOUR SHIFT!” she shouts. Above her, she can hear the plaster crackling in protest.

 

“Oh… yeah… right…”

 

“Sun, you **_better_** have a good fucking reason to call me at,” she glances at the nearest clock, only to remember she forgot to replace the fucking batteries last week. “Ass o’clock in the morning!”

 

“Uh… well, it’s important to me?”

 

“ **_Sun_ ** …”

 

“It _ is _ important! I swear!” Something shifts in the background on the other end of the receiver and she can hear someone cursing quietly.

 

“Sun, where are you right now?” Suddenly her conversation with Pyrrha doesn’t seem as weird as before. He didn’t shut up about anything else, why keep this quiet?

 

“At Neptune’s friend’s house,” he replies easily, not a hint of hesitation, and receives a smack in reprimand. She can hear the impact of someone’s hand on his back, cloth snaps in a weak protest. “Ow!”

 

“This friend wouldn’t have happened to just hit you?”

 

“We had a bit of an argument earlier.” There was some more muttering, followed by a hushed “if you’re not going to be quiet then you can go join blue boy!”

 

“Blue boy?” she questions.

 

“Neptune.” he clarifies.

 

“Ah.” She sighs, and glances once again at the kitchen, trying to gauge if an extended absence would be missed. Inside Ruby is currently dancing around with a spatula as a microphone as Pyrrha watches, head perched comfortably on her hands. She’s got ten minutes at least, and that’s if she decides to interrupt make-out time.

 

“Speaking of blue boy, what was up with the weird note y’all left me?”

 

“What note?” Sun asked, and she hates that she knows him well enough to know he’s doing the damn face. The one where his eyebrows do the weird twitching thing as he tries to pull off a raised one and fails.

 

“The one talking about your ‘pale friend’?”

 

“Oh… did Neptune leave that?”

 

“Yeah, right after you fucking bolted! What the hell Sun! You fucking owe me, I had to cover your table so neither of us got fired, asshat!”

 

“Shit, sorry Yang, Nep had a… family emergency…”

 

She can tell by the way his voice squeaks he’s lying. He’s never been good at it, but at this point, she’s tired, hungry, and running on nothing more than fumes, coffee, and adrenaline. 

 

“Sun, seriously, what’s up? You never call me this early.”

 

Sun gulps, “Uh, well y’see, we were just chilling-”

 

“We?”

 

“Me, Nep, and his friend.”

 

“How long have you and Nep been together, anyway?” Stupid Pyrrha and her stupid good questions.

 

“About a year now.”

 

Yang blinks, how the living hell did she miss this?

 

“And you seriously never mentioned this?”

 

Sun hums into the receiver, as if mulling over the question himself, as if he doesn’t know the answer.

 

“I must’ve at some point-”

 

“Sun, I make it a point to know what my friends are up to, even those that are a pain in my ass.” someone snorts on the other end of the line, glad to see  _ someone _ appreciates her sense of humor. “I’d remember if you mentioned it.”

 

“I highly doubt you remember every detail that I’ve told you about my life-”

 

“Your first pet was a fish named bubbles,” Yang interrupts before continuing on her current track of mind, “you absolutely despise WWE but your sister likes it so you watch it with her when she asks, you grew up in a tiny town a couple hours north of here named Marketville with your mother and little sister. There’s a tiny scar behind your left ear you got by trying to see how many binder clips you could fit onto it, the answer was eight. Your mother’s maiden name was Shie, and you have a birthmark that wraps around the whole of your left leg, need I go on?”

 

Silence greets her. For a fleeting moment, Yang wonders if she said something wrong, or mentioned a  secret she was told not to repeat or something of that nature. She was good at remembering details, but not so much the circumstances that surrounded them, however. Partially it was the reason why she never did well in school. She could tell you the exact date and time the civil war started, but not why or what was the lead-up.

Then the silence was broken.

 

 

“How the  _ hell  _ did you do that?” Sun’s voice holds that soft awed quality that a child’s did when you pulled a quarter from behind their ear. For all of Sun’s more annoying qualities, that was one that she’d found more endearing, though she’d never tell him that while she remained among the living.

 

“I told you, I make it a point to remember details about my friends.”

 

“What’s my favorite food?”

 

“Kung Pao chicken.”

 

“Color?”

 

“Blue.”

 

“Mother’s favorite song?”

 

“Sweet Caroline, Sun, are you going to answer my question?”

 

“I honestly thought I mentioned it!” He yells and somehow she knows that he’s raising his hands in surrender.

 

“Well, you didn’t.”

 

“Why did you think I was going out so often then?”

 

“I just assumed that you were a party animal!”

 

“Well you’re not wrong…” he muttered and that other voice whispered something that Yang couldn’t hear, too light for the receiver to translate accurately. She caught the words ‘Neptune’ and… ‘Vice’? “We’re getting off track,” he cut off the voice and Yang decides she’ll interrogate him the next time she sees him.

 

“Right, are you going to tell me why you called?”

 

“Well… okay, I need you to answer a question for me, and no matter how silly it sounds I need you to be honest.”

 

Yang blinks, she was expecting to be called to be his stupid designated driver after a night of drinking, not… an earnest question.

 

“Sun, we both know that your car is old enough to be classified as a dinosaur, yes you need to get a new one.”

 

“What?!” he shouts, loud enough that she actually has to pull the phone away from her ear. She hears Ruby letting out loud shrieks of laughter, echoed by Pyrrha’s deeper chuckles. She slowly brings her phone closer again. “No! No, that’s not what I meant, and Herbert and I go back a long way! I’m not getting rid of him until he won’t move again!”

 

“So… next month?”

 

“Yang!”

 

“Alright, alright, I’m just teasing.” Finally assured that Sun is being as serious as he can be, she sinks back against the couch. “What do you want to know?”

 

“Well…” he drawls the word out in a nervous, unassured way that she’s never heard from him before. Then he pulls in a new breath, and continues, “do you believe in ghosts?”

 

Once again Yang is surprised. It seems that Sun has her on her toes today.

 

“Are you and your boyfriend prank calling me?”

 

“What? No! Yang, just answer the question!”

 

Finally, Yang lets her shoulders drop, mulling it over. Does she believe in ghosts? Is the concept of souls persisting beyond death really something she can support, or blindly believe in?

 

A lot of people in Yang’s life have died. Her father, Ruby’s mother, her own mother… all of them were just gone one day, and only two of them left her an empty carcass to remember them by. Does she believe in ghosts? Does she believe that her parents are still there, watching over her despite all her transgressions and faults? That they’ve been watching as she stumbled through adult life to land a dead-end job at a restaurant she couldn’t afford to eat at in decades? That her father and mother, if they were watching her, would be content to watch their only two children try desperately to hold themselves together with no help and little support?

 

Does she believe in ghosts?

 

“No.”

 

“No?” Sun asks, sounding somewhere between surprised and concerned.

 

“Ghosts are just fairy tales, Sun.” she glances once more at the kitchen, where Ruby and Pyrrha are flirting over a steaming plate of scrambled eggs and toast. “Like dragons and knights. Things parents make up to give their kids something beyond boring old life to believe in, so they have something to look forward to.”

 

“You sound so sure.”

 

Pyrrha leans forwards to plant a kiss on her little sister’s cheek and, just for a second, she can see that golden gleam again.

 

“I am.”


	6. Snowflake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “See you ‘round, Nikos.”
> 
> Pyrrha smiles, but it feels hollow, like so many other things these days.
> 
> “You too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to the wonderful Snow, I couldn't do this without you buddy, really, thank you.  
> Also, Hi! I'm not dead! Just been a busy couple weeks. I got some big plans for this coming up, so try and stick around a bit longer, I promise you won't regret it.  
> -Milo

“She doesn’t know?!” Weiss stares, dumbfounded, as Neptune calmly sips from his smoothie, the thick maroon liquid moves like molasses as he works to get it around his teeth. Beside him, Blake sighs heavily and sets down her tuna sandwich with an air of finality.

 

“No, she doesn’t, and it would be very helpful if someone would  _ focus on the severity of the situation _ .”

 

Neptune freezes, mouth red with blood as a sheepish grin slowly spreads across his face. Both Blake and Weiss voice their disgust, he shrugs.

 

“Sorry…” he grabs his napkin and Weiss internally questions how he became her friend in the first place. “I don’t know why you’re freaking out, she doesn’t know, so what? We just approach this like she’s human.”

 

“Neptune…” Weiss drawls as if talking to a particularly hard-headed child. “She can’t be human because I’m not a fire elemental. So, if she’s not human, and somehow doesn’t know, then how the living hell is she alive, and what is she?”

 

“I don’t think-”

 

“Clearly.” Weiss’s glare is cold and solid, a visible weight that Neptune squirms underneath. 

 

“I don’t think this rules out a dragon.”

 

“How?” Blake’s brows rise, her ears twitch backward. “If she were a dragon how would she be able to control her powers? Dragons were some of the most powerful creatures to ever walk the earth, I highly doubt that someone with no knowledge of the supernatural would be able to control that kind of power. They’d end up killing themselves long before adulthood.”

 

Neptune frowns, “We don’t know that much about Dragons, much less how their abilities work. They might be a lot less temperamental than we think-”

 

“I doubt that if I can breathe fire by sneezing too hard,” Weiss breaks in. Neptune winces.

 

“Okay, so temperamental it is…” he sighs and runs a hand back through his hair. He’s going to be lucky if he makes it through this without her strangling him.

 

“She doesn’t know…” she trails off, then sighs, heavy and pained. It feels as if she’s pushing a brick out through her lungs. “So we’re back to square one…”

 

“Weiss…” Blake’s ears flick forward once again and her eyebrows draw upwards as if to meet them.

 

“Not necessarily-”

 

“ **_Neptune-_ ** ” She starts, but the vampire raises his hands in surrender.

 

“No, I’m serious! She doesn’t know but is clearly supernatural, so the bond might still apply, she’s just not aware of it.”

 

Weiss frowns, “Selkie bonds don’t work like that, they only go one way. Even if she were human I’d be the only one under address.”

 

“Dragons aren’t the only ones with mates though,” Neptune argues, “weres, vamps, even fae all have mates too.”

 

Blake carefully lifts her sandwich and stares into it, like she’s reading tea leaves rather than subpar fish. Weiss drops her head against the table once again.

 

The entire building was composed of dark mahogany floors and warm, well-loved tables that spoke of generations of both abuse and reverence. If Weiss closed her eyes she could melt into the sounds of quiet chatter and the crackling fire in the corner, it’s pink flames reaching for the ceiling in their never-ending dance as Phoenix and fire elementals alike frolicked in their depths. 

 

Tucson's Diner was one of the best known supernatural hotspots in New Orleans. Old as the city itself and located deep within the bad-side of town, it was the perfect place for those with less than human tendencies to convene and embrace their darker side.

 

That wasn’t to say it was necessarily safe. On more than one occasion Weiss had been privy to fights breaking out over the course of ten minutes, only to be eventually quieted down by the less than enthused owner, Tucson, who towered over anyone stupid enough to disturb the peace.

 

Despite this, and the other, lesser-known supernatural bars and restaurants in the area, Weiss and her friends just kept coming back here. Part of her suspected it had something to do with the fae bartender and her mischievous grin that seemed to follow them out every time, but she knew better. 

 

They kept coming back because it was what she had lacked growing up, finding her place in this unforgiving world in which she was forced into hiding. Tucson's was a full acceptance, everyone wins, no one leaves empty, kind of place. And after she’d spent the majority of her childhood knowing of the community’s existence, but not being allowed to interact with it, she craved the experience.

 

Blake probably just liked the charms she could see carved on the door, every time they came she spent a good five minutes watching them twist and turn.

 

Neptune… she wasn’t really sure why he came, maybe just out of habit at this point.

 

Regardless, they’d find themselves inside the building at least once a week to convene and complain about their lives and the difficulty of trying to live in the human and supernatural realms on a daily basis.

 

Finally, Blake looks up from her sandwich.

 

“That’s true, but when’s the last time you heard of a fire elemental who was also a were? Besides, Vampires and Fae face the same problem a Dragon does, she’d know if she was one, otherwise, she’d probably be dead.”

 

“She’s a hybrid then,” Neptune volunteers, as Weiss makes a face.

 

“If that were the case then there would be no bond, most hybrids lose their ability to carry one if they’re beyond second generational.”

 

“Most, not all.”

 

Weiss sighs, slowly lowering her head to thunk it against the table. “Can’t I just die alone? Why does this have to be so damn complicated…”

 

Blake lets out a sigh that partially amused, partially resigned. “I don’t know, but you can’t keep putting it off forever. The bond’s getting stronger, whether you like it or not, eventually you’re not going to have a choice.”

 

Weiss just releases a loud, drawn-out groan, hoping to a god she doesn’t believe in that it’ll somehow convey the sheer amount of frustration that’s flowing through her veins. Neptune’s straw squeaks obnoxiously in his drink.

“How’s that going, by the way, the bond thing?”

 

Weiss’s skull thumps against the table once again. Blake chuckles fondly.

 

“From my estimations, it should be progressing every four hours. You’ve only got four days before it starts to get uncomfortable, you better set up a meeting, sooner rather than later.”

 

“Progressing?” Neptune questions. Blake nods, chewing thoughtfully before swallowing.

 

“Don’t really know how that works, just what Weiss has told me. I think it’s something to do with, the longer you’re away from the bond-mate, the weaker you feel.”

 

“Selkie bonds are dependent,” Weiss mumbles into the table’s lacre. It tastes like dust and wood, “it was engineered that way to make sure bondmates produced an heir.”

 

“Um…” Neptune frowns, “are you saying that if you and Blondie don’t meet soon you’re going to get  _ more  _ crabby than usual?”

 

Weiss slowly raises her head to glare the vampire down, “you want to repeat that, fang-face?”

 

He swallows thickly, “Uh, nope, I’m good.”

 

“Weiss,” Blake breaks in, and she has to force herself not to retreat back into the darkness of the table. “This is serious. You need to figure out how you want to approach this before we’re forced to make the decision for you.”

 

Weiss releases a sigh that’s been building in her chest for the past hour, before glancing above Blake’s head in hopes of coming up with a response that sounds less like a whining child than  _ but I don’t wanna. _

 

Then, almost like a trick of the light, a flash of red hair goes flying behind Blake's head, followed by the thunder of footsteps and a second red-headed person follows.

 

“Oh PYYYYYYyyyyyYYyYyYYYRRHAAAAAA!” shrill and loud in ways that make both of Weiss’s hearing-advanced friends wince as Weiss carefully rises to poke her head out of the booth they’ve managed to claim.

 

Across the room a pair of red-headed girls, one considerably taller than the other, wrestle as a dark-haired man watches on, a small smile pulled across thin lips. The taller of the two manages to get the smaller in a headlock, just in time for her to meet Weiss’s gaze.

 

She recognizes that face, it’s the girl who saw her on the pier.

 

“Shit!” Weiss drops back into the booth, ducking down, hoping desperately the girl didn’t somehow recognize her. She doesn’t have her coat so hopefully, she’s not recognizable as a Selkie.

 

No such luck.

 

“Weiss?” Neptune asks, mouth stained red, and just as Weiss about to hiss at him to shut up the red-haired woman is leaning over the side of the booth.

 

“Ms. Schnee?” she asks and Weiss nearly jumps out of her skin.

 

“Just Weiss.” The words are automatic and stilted, more a habit than an actual declaration. The woman is attractive, terribly so, perfect unblemished bronze skin and full shiny hair that looks soft to the touch. 

 

But she  _ reeks _ , the scent of something ancient and powerful radiate off of her like heat from a flame. Around them entire tables of patrons shrink away, Neptune’s nose wrinkles and the ears atop Blake’s head lay backward. The woman in question doesn’t bat an eye, likely aware of the scent that clings to her like a second skin. She opens her mouth to say something else when her smaller counterparts each make themselves known. The other red-head slides across the wooden floor as if she’s wearing socks and wraps an arm over the taller girl’s shoulders with all the grace of someone who has had far too many beers.

 

“There a problem over here?”

 

If the first woman reeks then the second smells like a garbage truck on fire. Patrons fall over each other trying to escape the immediate area, Neptune’s fangs flash, Blake’s hair stands up on the back of her head. Weiss’s own heritage, something that usually only presents itself in her coat, causes her to bare her teeth, a howl hinging in the back of her throat and waiting to be let loose.

 

The short woman grins, clearly taking pleasure in being feared.

 

Behind the two of them, a quiet man stands, hands folded carefully behind his back. If he smells anything like his friends, Weiss can’t tell. It’s masked by the much stronger odors of the girls.

 

The taller carefully brushes the shorter woman’s arm off her shoulder. “No problem, I just have some business with Ms. Schnee.” The look she shoots Weiss leaves little room for argument but, well, Weiss has always been an opportunist and a little room is enough.

 

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, miss?”

 

“Nikos.” She says the word like it’s supposed to mean something to her, the way her mouth presses into a thin line and her brows draw together mean something important. However, Weiss only vaguely recognizes it as greek.

 

Neptune, on the other hand, backpedals so fast he falls out of his chair. Beside him, Blake’s ears shoot upwards once again before folding back down.

 

“Nikos?” Neptune chokes, “as in Achindele Nikos?”

 

“Pyrrha, actually.” She corrects and, though her gaze remains cemented on Weiss, there’s a flicker of something in her gaze. Something primal.

 

Neptune relaxes, just barely, but he doesn’t get up from the floor. Blake, however, doesn’t.

 

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about a Pantheras Nikos?” She asks, voice as smooth as silk. This time Pyrrha’s eyes do leave Weiss, if only for a moment, to glance over Blake as if seeing her for the first time. She lingers on the ears currently pressed into her skull before sliding back over to Weiss.

 

“My mother.” Is all she says. Blake nods, suspicious.

 

“Good woman.”

 

“A dead woman.” She answers.

 

“It really looks like there’s a problem here.” her smaller red-haired companion interrupts again. The air crackles with barely restrained energy and the few patrons still in their corner of the bar flee. Pyrrha sighs and turns to shoot her a look.

 

“Nora, not now.”

 

The now-named Nora pouts, but the dark-haired man grabs her by the wrist and pulls her back before she can try to start anything. He shoots the four of them an apologetic smile.

 

Pyrrha returns her attention to Weiss.

 

“Miss Schnee, may I speak to you for a moment?”

 

Oh, how Weiss knows she should say no.

 

There’s something inherently dangerous about her, though she can’t quite put her finger on it, that strangely sweet smile sends the hairs on the back of her head standing straight up. Blake’s has yet to settle down and from his position on the floor, Neptune’s fangs still glitter in the candlelight. There’s just something wrong about her, something screaming at Weiss from the depths of her soul to stay away.

 

But the way her voice drops into a commanding tone, how her feet plant, flat and steady, tell her she’s not going to take no for an answer.

 

Slowly, Weiss stands.

 

“Of course.”

 

The words have barely left her lips before Pyrrha seizes her by the upper arm and drags her across the bar and into the women’s bathroom. Weiss has encountered several  creatures with a sort of superspeed throughout her life, but the way that Pyrrha moves feels more in line with teleportation, her feet barely touch the ground.

 

Upon entering the bathroom even that is lost. She’s pressed up against the nearest wall, a single arm against her throat keeping her aloft, and a set of glowing golden eyes stare at her from underneath the taller woman’s bangs.

 

“Selkie.” The word comes from a voice as cold as the Arctic. She’s heard a million masked threats before, supernatural creatures rarely get along so easily, but the word is filled with so much venom that Weiss actually recoils from it.

 

“What the hell do you want from me?” Weiss asks, voice a cheap imitation of the one wielded by her counterpart. Pyrrha’s face is a mask of cool indifference, despite the threat in her actions, there is no anger, no concealed rage. She’s a statue, unmoving and unfeeling. Her teeth don’t bare, there’s no growl under her breath, not even a change in her scent. 

 

“Stay away from  _ η ζωή μου. _ ” 

 

Weiss blinks, confused.

 

“I’m sorry, what?”

 

The arm holding her aloft presses harder and Weiss can feel tissue bruising beneath the vice-like grip. Her teeth grit together as the burning sensation slowly progresses while the woman’s mask of indifference remains in place. Her breath releases in a huff dangerously close to a scream.

 

“I know your kind,” she says each word like she’s reading off a teleprompter, like she’s said them so many times she’s forgotten the meaning. “And I’ve dealt with you a million times. I’ll do it again if I have to, but I’m giving you the same warning I gave those before you. Touch her, and I’ll rip you open so that you can see your own rotten heart. Your allegiance to  _ him  _ will not save you from  _ her _ .”

 

Weiss’s heart thuds like a stone dropping in her chest.

 

“What?”

 

The word comes strangled from her lips.

 

Pyrrha’s eyes, still a brilliant gold that reminds her of the sun, soften just the slightest.

 

“Look, you’re young, and I don’t like getting too deep into these if I don’t have to. So just back off, alright?” She sets her down with a gentleness completely at odds with the pressure against her windpipe just moments prior. Weiss gasps and then watches, mystified, as the gold disappears and unassuming green takes its place. “Killing her won’t grant you what you seek, and trust me…” she smiles a smile that’s in no way happy. “You don’t want it anyway.”

 

With that, she pats Weiss on the head like she’s a child who just got scolded for tucking her hand into the cookie jar and leaves her in the bathroom, alone.

 

“The fuck?”

 

~

 

“Okay,” Blake’s brows look about ready to merge into a single bushy caterpillar in the middle of her forehead, her eyes squint in concentration, but Weiss knows that no matter how much she tries she’s not going to get it either. “She said  _ what  _ again?”

 

“Blake,” Weiss sighs, exasperated and exhausted. She drops back against the car door and drapes a wrist over her forehead. “We’ve been at this for twenty minutes if there was an answer you’d have found it by now.”

 

“I just don’t get it.” the witch shakes her head as if trying to dismiss a cobweb but the expression of disbelief remains intact. “The hell is an “easy moo”?”

 

“I don’t know!” Weiss yells. Why the hell does her life have to be so complicated? It’s been three days and she already feels like she needs to go for another swim.

 

“Are you sure she’s the same lady who was with your Intended’s kin?” Neptune asks from the driver’s seat. His eyebrows have also created an impressive furrow, but his massive forehead keeps them from touching, even if just barely.

 

“Positive,” Weiss drawls.

 

Neptune hums as Blake makes quiet cursing noises at her cellphone, trying desperately to find something online.

 

“You know,” he mutters, carefully making a left turn onto a smaller street, “a couple of centuries back I met a woman by the name of Achindele Nikos.”

 

“You mentioned.” Blake’s voice sounds about as enthusiastic as a dead horse. Neptune shoots her a glare before returning to look at the road.

 

“She was a weird woman,” he continues, “absolutely obsessed with this idea of finding what she called i zoi mou.”

 

Blake pauses, looking up from her phone. “Easy moo?” she asks. Neptune shakes his head.

 

“I zoi mou.” he corrects. Weiss just rolls her eyes.

 

“What does this have to do with our Nikos?” she asks. Neptune shrugs.

 

“Don’t know, but I do know that she looked kinda similar to ours, and Blake, you said you knew someone named that?”

 

The ears atop blake’s head twitch.

 

“My parents had a friend named Pantheras. She was… eccentric. I don’t remember much about her except she’d bring me butterscotch candies when she visited. Around the time I was five she moved, something about getting a lead on something. I think she was a detective?”

 

“And that was her mother,” Weiss murmurs, “maybe they’re all connected? Some kind of order or clan?”

 

“If that’s the case,” Neptune finally pulls to a stop outside a large old fashioned looking building. “Then your bondmate situation has gotten a whole lot more complicated.”

 

“Gee, I hadn’t noticed.” Weiss feels as if her teeth are trying to escape her skull, humming with barely contained electricity. She really needs a swim.

 

“Neptune,” Blake asks, still typing on her phone, “how did you know your… Nikos friend?”

 

Neptune shrugs. “We ran in similar circles. She had a little… well, they didn’t exactly label themselves as that given the time period, but she had a little girlfriend who was friends with my partner at the time.”

 

“Achendele…” Blake murmurs “Did she smell like our Nikos?”

 

“I don’t remember Blake,” Neptune sighs, running a clawed hand through his hair. “That was centuries ago-”

 

“That  _ was  _ weird,” Weiss breaks in, not in the mood for Neptune’s whining. “She smelled like an Old One, but… there’s no way, right?”

 

“Old ones don’t present themselves that obviously.” Blake agrees before setting her phone down. “If she were one then you likely wouldn’t have survived the encounter.”

 

Weiss glares. “Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence Blake.”

 

“She’s right,” Neptune pulls the keys out of the ignition and starts to get out of the car. “Old ones are way too powerful. It doesn’t matter if she wanted to or not, if she got mad, you’d be ash.”

 

Weiss rolls her eyes, “and yet you’re claiming that my intended could be one?” she asks, distraught.

 

“I don’t think she is a full one,” Neptune disclaims, “I just think that she could be related to one.”

 

“Could explain the whole fire motif,” Blake reasons. Her car door shuts in Weiss’s face and she just barely suppresses the urge to growl. Finally, she follows the two out.

 

“And which Old One would that be?” she asks, “Fire? War? Death?”

 

“Sun.” Neptune volunteers. Blake nods, slow and considering. 

 

“She did have a bit of that, didn’t she?”

 

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation,” Weiss moans into her palms. “Is it actually more likely that she’s the daughter of what is, essentially, a god then to simply be a weird fire elemental?”

 

“It would explain how she doesn’t know,” Neptune volunteers, “children of Old Ones don’t get to spend any time with their parents. They’re raised by the other parent unless they told her she’d have no knowledge.”

 

“And these, ‘exceptional powers’.” Weiss pantomimes quotation marks with her fingers. “She somehow  _ doesn’t _ burn down the entire city during her twenty-something years of life?”

 

“With great power comes great difficulty unlocking it,” Blake counters, “Old One’s powers are theirs alone. If she had access to them she’d have to have a direct connection to her parent.”

 

“Then how the hell can I access them!” Weiss shouts, ready to explode in frustration. “I’m not any more connected than she is!”

 

“Au contraire, you’re in the supernatural world, and fully aware of it. You’re more connected to any of the Old Ones than any unknowing mortal would ever be.”

 

Finally, Weiss gives up.

 

“But, but-gah!” Smoke escapes her in a final bid to rid herself of the heat that’s been building up in her chest for the past twenty minutes. “I am going to kill myself!”

 

Blake and Neptune freeze, exchanging glances as their small angry friend continues expelling smoke and tongues of flame lick at the back sides of her teeth.

 

“Why can’t my life just be normal, for one.  _ Fucking.  _ Day!”

 

“Weiss,” Blake tries.

 

“No!” she shouts back, whirling on her feline eared friend. “No! I’ve been told to calm down for three days of this bullshit! I get five minutes to shout to the heavens about how fucking unfair it is!”

 

“Weiss,” Neptune tries, voice sickly sweet and fatigue threatens to overwhelm her, but the heat in her chest just burns right through.

 

“An Old One!” she shouts, voice dangerously close to hysterical. “A fucking Old One, guys!” her voice is raw and every breath feels like she’s exhaling molten lava, “do you not understand how fucking insane that is?! The Old Ones are gods! They created the fucking planet and everything on it, and you’re like, hey what if your bondmate was the daughter of one, wouldn’t that make a lot of sense?” Her skin burns and itches, “Need I remind you what happened  _ last time  _ we met an Old One?”

 

Blake flinches, Neptune ducks his head a little. 

 

“Do you remember what he did to us? To Blake?”

 

“Weiss.” Blake’s voice is dark, not angry, but stern in ways she’s never heard it. “That’s enough.”

 

“I don’t think it is,” Weiss still feels like she’s encased in flames, “if she’s anything like him, and I’m bonded to her, what do you think that means?”

 

“ **Weiss** .” Blake’s eyes smolder, like twin pools of molten gold. The shadows seem to grow longer, wrapping themselves around her ankles in tendrils of smoke. “ **I** **_said_ ** **that’s-** ”

 

“Both of you, cool it!” A new voice breaks in and, up on the steps, a man in board shorts and an open white button up stands. A look that would be criminal for most people, but the set of polished muscles beneath nearly excuse it. “You’ll wake the whole damn neighborhood.”

 

The flames licking at Weiss’s throat evaporate like water on concrete. The shadows at Blake’s feet fade back into clear cut lines from the street lamps above, but her ears remain pinned back, her eyes still just a bit unsettling in the dark.

 

Neptune visibly relaxes, “thank you.”

 

Sun rolls his eyes, pulling his door the rest of the way open, “don’t thank me yet.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

Sun’s shoulders rise a little, “our little blonde friend is getting curious, tried to interrogate me about you on shift today.”

 

“That it?” Weiss asks, still a touch salty. A final puff of smoke escapes her nostrils. Sun blinks, staring after it with a sense of wonder.

 

“Not quite.” With one quick, practiced movement Sun pulls out his phone and shows a picture of the girl in question, staring at a glass of water in hand, frozen solid. “It seems the powers go both ways.”

 

Weiss’s stomach drops.

 

 

~~~

 

 

Nora sighs from her place against the bar, shaking her head in a mixture of resignation and fond amusement. “You need to stop being so impulsive Pyr.”

 

Pyrrha sighs and has half a mind to dump the remains of her drink over the other girl, but doubts it would do her any good. “You’re one to talk, how many times have you jumped the gun?”

 

Nora laughs. “Touche.” Beside her, Ren’s hands remain folded neatly in his lap, but his eyes glitter with his own barely contained amusement. Pyrrha rolls her eyes at the expression, she’s seen it enough times now that the responding smirk is practically reflex. Even others like her can get predictable after a while, she’s found.

 

“What would you have had me do?” she questions, “She got too close, and she’s caught up in this, she smells-”

 

“She smells like Tai,” Nora finishes for her, rolling her eyes. “Which means nothing! Tai isn’t exactly what we’d call an enemy of hers. Besides, the scent is faint, not a direct connection. My guess is that she’s bonded with someone who has a more direct link. She  _ is  _ selkie after all-”

 

“Regardless,” Pyrrha breaks in, “She smelled like an Old One. My purpose is to protect her, from any and all threats-”

 

“But her own father?” Nora shakes her head. “I don’t think there’s much of a threat there. He’s far too sentimental-”

 

“It doesn’t matter.” She’s getting tired of saying that. “If she poses even the smallest threat, she’s a threat, and I have to deal with it.”

 

Nora releases a sigh and takes whatever is in the glass of horrendously glowing liquid that Tucson gave her earlier and throws it back. Once it’s gone she turns to shoot Pyrrha a final exasperated glare.

 

“What’s the big deal, anyway. Say she is a threat? You’re Pyrrha Nikos, you take an overgrows sea-cow.”

 

“It’s seal, Nora,” Ren corrects, soft and uninterested. Nora flaps a hand in his face.

 

“Whatever, my point is that you overreacted. There’s no point in risking revealing yourself just to threaten some little sea mammal.”

 

They’ve had this conversation enough times that Pyrrha can recite it in her sleep. She’ll continue to remind Nora that it is her duty to protect her, and Nora will continue to insist that she doesn’t need to try nearly half as hard as she does, and every time she’ll eventually just lay her head in her hands and tell Nora that she can’t understand. Might as well just skip to the end.

 

“You’ve never been human, never had to live like that. Fearing to lose everything in an instant because one little thing goes wrong, because you forgot one t to cross, one i to dot. I can’t cut corners, you know that.”

 

“But you don’t have to jump every time someone accidentally knocks on the door.” Nora rolls her eyes. “Old _Mother White’s_ not gonna take your life away because you didn’t attack someone for giving your girlfriend a handshake.”

 

“It’s not about that and you know it,” Pyrrha growls, “it’s never been about that.”

 

“Pyrrha,” Ren cuts in. He carefully pulls what looks like a maple leaf from his pocket, spinning the stem in long, soft-looking fingers. “Nora’s just looking out for you. This isn’t the first time you’ve done something like this, and one of these days you’re not going to get off so easily.”

 

Her shoulders slump.

 

“I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”

 

Nora just throws up her hands in exasperation. “Mortals! Why must you be so stubborn?”

 

Pyrrha almost laughs, she can feel the corners of her mouth turning upwards. At least Nora is still as excitable as ever.

 

“It’s one of our best traits.” With that, she tosses a twenty atop the bar.

 

“You leaving?” Ren questions. Pyrrha shrugs.

 

“I have a girlfriend waiting for me,” she spins to give a smirk at the two, “and I wouldn’t want to cut in on your date.”

 

Nora roars with laughter, throwing her head back as Ren shakes his head.

 

“See you ‘round, Nikos.”

 

Pyrrha smiles, but it feels hollow, like so many other things these days.

 

“You too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly just for fun and to stave off writer's block, however, I am open to suggestion, so lend an idea!


End file.
